About 2,000 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree candidates, joined by family and friends, will gather at Edward A. LeLacheur Park for the 2007 Commencement ceremony, beginning at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, June 3. This is the first time the University has held commencement at the ballpark.

Graduates and their guests will hear from civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis and will honor the achievements of Distinguished Alumni Award winner Mark A. Saab ’81, as well as those of honorary degree recipients Jack Kerouac (posthumously), the literary icon; L. Donald LaTorre, president of L & G Management Consultants; and Philip Leder, professor and chair of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. 

Saab, who graduated with a degree in plastics engineering, has nearly 25 years of experience in the plastics industry, including 20 years in medical devices, and holds more than 30 patents. A Lowell resident, Saab is the president, co-founder and co-owner of Advanced Polymers, Inc., in Salem, NH, which manufactures the world’s thinnest, strongest and smallest heat-shrink tubing and produces high- and low-pressure balloons for the medical device industry.

Saab has given back to the University he feels gave him support. His generous contribution allowed UMass Lowell to open the Mark Saab Advanced Polymers Physical and Rheological Properties Testing Laboratory – a teaching facility dedicated to polymer property evaluation – in 2004. He and his wife, Elisia, also established two scholarships for UMass Lowell engineering students.
Lowell was the hometown of literary icon and honorary degree winner Jack Kerouac.  Author of some 30 books, Kerouac is being honored fifty years after the publication of his most famous book, “On the Road.”
The award will be accepted by the executor of Kerouac’s literary estate, brother-in-law John Sampas. Two weeks after commencement, the 120-foot “On the Road” scroll, upon which Kerouac’s manuscript was drafted in 1951, will be on display at the Boott Mills Cotton Museum in Lowell.
The commencement ceremonies also recognize students for outstanding academic and service achievements. This year's valedictorian will be named, along with recipients of the Chancellor's Medal for Distinguished Academic Achievement.

Following the University-wide ceremony at the ballpark, master’s and bachelor’s degree candidates will receive their diplomas at individual college ceremonies, which will take place at noon at various locations on campus. Doctoral degree candidates will receive their diplomas at the university-wide event.

UMass Lowell Chancellor David J. MacKenzie will preside over the festivities, and UMass President Jack Wilson will attend. The incoming chancellor, U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, will introduce commencement speaker Lewis, whom he personally invited to speak. Meehan officially assumes his new post July 1.

Lewis, now serving his eleventh term as a congressman from Georgia, has been described as “one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced.” His early experiences included leading the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. which helped secure passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Lewis is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize.