MEDIA ADVISORY Cincinnati State commencement is May 3 Graduates ready for workforce, pursuit of advanced degrees

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 30, 2015

CONTACT
Robert White
Media Relations/Communications Coordinator
(513) 569-4775 (office)
(859) 468-6640 (cell) 
robert.white@cincinnatistate.edu

MEDIA ADVISORY

Cincinnati State commencement is May 3

Graduates ready for workforce, pursuit of advanced degrees

Students will be in the spotlight during Cincinnati State’s commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 3.
The event will be held at the Cintas Center at Xavier University, beginning at 3 p.m. This year 
approximately 1,140 students are scheduled to earn associate degrees or certificates from Cincinnati 
State.

 
Among the highlights of the event:

 Honorary degrees will be awarded to two women who have long been active in Greater 
Cincinnati’s civic life and civil rights movements, Marian Spencer and Louise Spiegel.

 The Student Address will be given by Joseph Vodzak, a summa cum laude graduate of Cincinnati 
State’s Electronics Engineering Technology program. 

 The Commencement Addresses will be given by students Jonathan Lang and Jamie Wooten. 
Lang landed a full-time job representing a leading national insulation manufacturer at local, state, 
and national policy conferences even before he had graduated from Cincinnati State’s energy 
efficiency program in the Center for Innovative Technology. Wooten, an Air Force veteran, began 
taking classes at age 42 along with two of her six children, in part to set an example to them; she 
will graduate summa cum laude in the dietetic technology program. 

 Recognition will be given to the 2015 recipients of the House/Bruckmann Awards for Faculty 
Excellence, Heather Hatchett, chair of the Psychology Department at Cincinnati State, and 
Melinda Piles, a Health and Fitness instructor in the Division of Health and Public Safety.

 The Distinguished Alumni Award for 2015 will be presented to Dr. Mark Kovic, a 1996 graduate of 
Cincinnati State’s Occupational Therapy Assistant program who is Associate Professor and 
Assistant Program Director of the Occupational Therapy program at Midwestern University.

ABOUT CINCINNATI STATE
Cincinnati State (www.cincinnatistate.edu) offers more than 130 associate degree and certificate 
programs in business technologies, health and public safety, engineering technologies, humanities and 
sciences and information technologies. Cincinnati State has one of the most comprehensive co-op 
programs among two-year colleges in the U.S. 

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