Michigan Supreme Court Justice to speak at LSSU graduation

NEWS RELEASE

LAKE SUPERIOR STATE UNIVERSITY

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Michigan Supreme Court Justice, author to speak at LSSU graduation

SAULT STE. MARIE, MI - Michigan Supreme Court Justice Mary McCormack will return to the Eastern Upper Peninsula on Saturday, April 30, to speak at Lake Superior State University’s annual commencement program.

McCormack last spoke at LSSU in September during a public program in which she encouraged young people to become involved in civics and their communities.

Nearly 500 students, one-fifth of them graduating with honors, will receive more than 600 degrees during the ceremony, which starts at 11 a.m. in the Norris Center’s Taffy Abel Ice Arena.

It will be streamed live through lssu.edu.

The graduates come from 14 different states and Canada, and from as far away as Belize and Australia.

The program will include presentation of an honorary doctorate to author and speaker Erik Qualman, announcement of the recipient of the LSSU Distinguished Teaching Award, and an address to his fellow graduates by honors engineering graduate Trace Hill, of Roscommon.

Graduates, LSSU faculty, and members of the LSSU Board of Trustees will be led into the ceremony as they have been for more than 50 years with the bagpipes of the Duncan Family of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

The LSSU chorus will perform during the program, and LSSU’s newest alumni will leave the ice arena to the beat of an honor song performed by the native drumming group Aabizii of Brimley, Michigan.

In addition to guests McCormack and Qualman, LSSU will play host to several “Golden Grads,” some of its earliest graduates who are invited back to campus every year to participate in the commencement ceremony.

Commencement speaker McCormack has been a member of the Michigan Supreme Court since January 2013, and she continues to teach law at University of Michigan Law School.

She is a graduate of the New York University Law School who went on to work for five years in New York, first with the Legal Aid Society and then the Office of the Appellate Defender, representing more than 1,000 clients in trial and appellate courts.

In 1996, she became a faculty fellow at Yale Law School.

She joined UM Law School in 1998, teaching criminal law, legal ethics, and more.

Her scholarship focused on the professional benefits of clinical legal education, and she created new clinics, including one for domestic violence and another for paediatric health advocacy.

She co-founded the Michigan Innocence Clinic in 2008, in which students represent wrongfully convicted Michigan residents.

In 2010, she received the “Justice for All” Award for the clinic’s work.

In 2014, she was appointed by the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology to a newly-created National Commission on Forensic Science that works to improve the practice of forensic science.

McCormack is married to Steven Croley, a lawyer and law professor currently on leave from UM Law School to serve as general counsel to the U.S. Dept. of Energy.

The couple has four children.

Erik Qualman is an international best-selling author and motivational keynote speaker who makes more than 50 appearances per year.

He has spoken in 44 countries on a variety of topics, with special attention to digital leadership, digital reputation and ratings, and disruptive innovation.

His partners include Starbucks, Raytheon, Chase, Sony, Airgas, Disney and more than 200 universities.

He delivered the keynote address at IBM’s 2013 Business Connect in Milan, Italy, and was featured speaker at BookExpo America 2009, presenting how social media is transforming the way people live and do business.

Qualman has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his book, What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube and his book, Digital Leader, propelled him to be voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.

His books have been translated into nine languages.

He is a sitting professor at Harvard and MIT’s edX labs.

In addition to his speaking and writing, he has worked in online marketing and e-business with ATT, Yahoo, EarthLink and Travelzoo.

He is the producer of the world’s most viewed video about social media: “Social Media Revolution.”

Qualman is from Rochester Hills, Michigan, and he lives and works in Miami, Austin, and Boston.

He received a bachelor of arts degree in marketing from Michigan State University, where he was Academic All-Big Ten in basketball and has been honored as Alumnus of the Year.

He holds a master’s degree in business administration from the McCombs School of Business at University of Texas.

Student respondent Trace Hill is graduating summa cum laude with an honors degree in computer engineering.

For his honors thesis, he conducted pedagogical research with the Eastern Upper Peninsula Intermediate School District to identify challenges associated with the adoption of design-based learning in K-12 science and math classrooms.

For his engineering degree, he worked with an interdisciplinary team to produce a real-world product for industry, a requirement of LSSU engineering for many years.

His team designed Bermuda-style window shutters with motorized blades that use solar panels to power the blade rotation, a USB charging station, and interior lighting.

Team sponsor 3M will use the prototype to demonstrate what could be marketed as an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional window shutters.

Over the past two summers, he secured engineering internships at Nexteer Automotive in Saginaw, and then with Boeing’s Phantom Works -- Advanced Design and Prototype Solutions division in Huntsville, Alabama.

“I graduated from a small high school in a small town, so I respected the intimacy of this campus,” Hill said. “You can recognize that the faculty here are invested in both the personal and professional lives of their students.”

Hill returns to Huntsville in June to work as a software engineer at the Boeing division where he was an intern.

He will be working in a department contracted by NASA for the development of a rocket called Space Launch System, while pursuing a master’s degree in physics.

Hill is the son of Brian and Julie Hill of Roscommon.

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