UNLV graduates hit home runs with first December ceremonies

Jace Radke

Monday, Dec. 21, 1998 | 11:25 a.m.

It would have been a good day for the Rebel baseball team to knock a few balls out of UNLV's Earl Wilson Stadium Saturday, as the wind was blowing out to center field.

Instead there were approximately 500 students walking up to a stage that was right about where the pitcher's mound should be to accept their diplomas as graduates during the university's first winter commencement.

"It was a little windy out there, but it went really well," UNLV spokesman Tom Flagg said. "We had a number of students who had asked for a December commencement, and I imagine we will continue to hold it, although I don't know if it will be outside again."

Normally the university holds the spring commencement in the Thomas & Mack Center, but the center was booked with the Las Vegas Shootout basketball doubleheader, so the first winter commencement was moved outside to the baseball field.

At least one graduate felt a little more at home walking across the stage and getting his diploma on the baseball diamond.

"It was kind of ironic to get my diploma right where I used to pitch for the Rebels," former UNLV pitcher Mike Zipser said. "It was a nice ceremony, and I'm glad that they decided to have a winter commencement, because I wasn't able to attend the spring ceremony."

Zipser, who graduated with a bachelor science degree in sports injury management, finished school last May, but he was unable to attend graduation ceremonies, because he had been drafted into the Philadelphia Phillies organization and was pitching in the New York Penn. League.

Stories like Zipser's are part of the reason that the university decided to hold a winter commencement, Flagg said.

"We have students who graduate in August after summer school and students who graduate after the fall semester in December," Flagg said. "With the two ceremonies, we can accommodate those students so they don't have to wait until spring."

The two-hour ceremony included the presentation of two honorary doctorates to Gov. Bob Miller and Barbara Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. Miller was presented with a doctorate of laws, while Greenspun was given a doctorate of humane letters.

UNLV President Carol Harter said Greenspun's contributions "greatly enhanced UNLV's ability to provide high-quality educational opportunities."

"In the 1950s, you and your late husband Hank made the Las Vegas Sun a highly influential daily newspaper," Harter said, also crediting Barbara Greenspun for helping to establish the city's first television station in 1953 and the first cable television service in 1970.

"You and your family have long been known for your philanthropic support of such charitable, arts and civic organizations as St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Henderson Boys and Girls Clubs, the Sun Summer Camp Fund and the Clark County Public Education Foundation."

Barbara Greenspun, a member of the UNLV Foundation Board of Trustees, helped establish the Hank Greenspun School of Communication, the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs and the Barbara Greenspun Lecture Series.

In presenting Miller's honorary doctorate, Harter said: "Your support of education at all levels has benefitted the people of Nevada. ... Your budget recommendations for higher education have created increases for Nevada's colleges and universities that are among the highest in the nation."

The ceremony, which began at 11 a.m. and ended at 1 p.m., only had two hitches, according to Zipser.

"One girl lost her hat in the wind, and I don't know how happy the coach (UNLV baseball coach Rod Sosbey) is going to be about having this many people on the field," Zipser said.