Xerox chairman and chief executive officer Ursula Burns, SEAS ’82, will speak at SEAS Class Day on May 14.
Burns started as a summer intern at Xerox before rising through the ranks to become the first African-American woman to run a Fortune 500 company. She earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Engineering Graduate Student Council President Andrew Kang, who helped choose the Class Day speaker, said that Burns was asked to speak because of her “personal and professional story.”
“We also didn’t want to just get somebody with a Ph.D. perspective,” Kang said. “We wanted somebody with a broad perspective of what engineering is.”
Class of 2012 President Judy Kim, who was also involved in the selection process, said that undergraduates wanted a speaker who reflected Columbia’s diversity and was also an accomplished engineer.
“There were a lot of people on the list, but we wanted someone who could fit our criteria,” she said. “Her background is what we all aim for—it’s like a fairy tale.”
This was the first year that students took part in the process of selecting SEAS’ Class Day speaker, as Columbia College students have done for several years. Senior Associate Dean of Student Affairs Kathryn Wittner said that at first, she was worried that student input would complicate the selection process.
“We’ve been working with the dean at engineering to make the same transition” as CC, she said. “Engineering students have been saying, ‘We’d love to be involved in the process,’ and this year was the first year we were actually able to engage this. It was a great process.”
The Engineering Student Council’s class of 2012 representatives and EGSC each came up with a short list of potential speakers. They then met with administrators from the alumni, student affairs, and dean’s offices to determine three finalists.
The selection process went smoothly—Kang said that when he met with other EGSC members to discuss a Class Day speaker, every member was strongly considering Burns already. Both councils ultimately came up with the same top three speakers and ranked Burns first, although SEAS Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora made the final decision.
Wittner said that Class Day is the “most important platform of the academic year,” which is why she wanted the speaker to be a SEAS alum.
“Why would we want to relinquish that spotlight to someone from the outside who gives you a canned commencement speech that could be Stanford or Bryn Mawr or Harvard?” Wittner said.
Last year’s SEAS Class Day speaker was SEAS graduate Ralph Izzo, the head of the publicly-owned utility company that provides energy to most of New Jersey.
COMMENTS
Comments will be moderated in accordance with our comment policy