A celebration of the opening of the academic year, Fall Convocation provides an opportunity to recognize the achievements of first-year students, and to encourage all to reflect on the meaning of a college education. It's an exciting chance to see many SU faculty march in academic regalia and, for most first-year students, provides the first taste of pomp and circumstance!

With this opportunity to realize your potential and pursue your dreams comes the burden of responsibility and self-reliance. Convocation recognizes your commitment to excellence thus far in your scholastic career, and the University takes this time to welcome new students to the SU family.

Fall Convocation is Friday, August 28, at 9 a.m. on Red Square. The guest speaker will be author of the New Student Reader Journey from the Land of No, Roya Hakakian.

In the event of rain, Fall Convocation will be held inside Maggs Gym and lunch will be held at the Commons.

About the Convocation Speaker:

ROYA HAKAKIAN has collaborated on over a dozen hours of programming for leading journalism units on network television, including 60 Minutes and on A& E's "Travels With Harry", and ABC Documentary Specials with the late Peter Jennings, Discovery and The Learning Channel. Commissioned by UNICEF, Roya's most recent film, Armed and Innocent on the subject of the involvement of underage children in wars around the world was a nominee for best short documentary at several festivals around the world.

Hakakian is the author of two collections of poetry in Persian, the first of which, For the Sake of Water, was nominated as poetry book of the year by Iran News in 1993. She was listed among the leading new voices in Persian poetry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies around the world, including La Regle Du Jeu , Strange Times My Dear: The Pen Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature , and the forthcoming W.W. Norton's Contemporary Voices of the Eastern World: An Anthology of Poems . She contributes to the Persian Literary Review, and served as the poetry editor of Par Magazine for six years.

Her opinion columns, essays, and book reviews appear in English language publications, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal among them. She is also a contributor to the Weekend Edition of NPR's All Things Considered. Roya is a member of the editorial board of the journal, World Affairs: A Journal Of Ideas And Debate.

Hakakian is a fellow at Yale University's Whitney Humanities Center. She is a founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and serves on the board of Refugees International. She speaks on the subject of the Middle East and human rights and has appeared on CSPAN-Book TV, CNN International, CBS Early Show, and Now with Bill Moyers. Her memoir of growing up a Jewish teenager in post-revolutionary Iran, Journey from the Land of No : A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran (Crown) was a Barnes & Noble's Pick of the Week, Ms. Magazine Must Read of the Summer, Publishers Weekly's Best Book of the Year, Elle Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2004, and was named Best Memoir by the Connecticut Center for the Book in 2005. She is also a recipient of the 2008 Guggenheim fellowship in nonfiction.

Born and raised in a Jewish family in Tehran, Hakakian came to the United States in May 1985 on political asylum. She lives in Connecticut.

ALSO ON AUGUST 28:

Following Convocation, students will participate in Small Group Discussions for the New Student Reader immediately following Convocation.

Students will then move to Academic Open Houses from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. for important information regarding their academic programs. Attendance for both events is mandatory.

Lunch follows on Devilbiss Lawn for faculty and students.

In the event of rain, Fall Convocation will be held inside Maggs Gym and lunch will be held at the Commons.