Doctoral commencement exercises will be held at 8:30 a.m. Aug. 9 in the Koger Center. John W. Van Zee, A USC professor of chemical engineering and director of the University’s newly established Industry/University for Cooperative Research Center for Fuel Cells, will be the speaker.

The University expects to award more than 1,400 degrees to graduates from all eight campuses, including three associate degrees, 497 baccalaureate degrees, 479 master’s degrees, 11 graduate certificates, nine graduate specialist’s degrees, 98 doctoral degrees, and four law degrees from the Columbia campus.

Degree candidates from the four-year and regional campuses include one associate degree, 66 baccalaureate degrees, and six master’s degrees from USC Aiken; 19 associate degrees from USC Beaufort; 14 associate degrees from USC Lancaster; 10 associate degrees from USC Salkehatchie; 176 baccalaureate degrees and six master’s degrees from USC Spartanburg; 18 associate degrees from USC Sumter; and two associate degrees from USC Union.

Carson is the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, where he is an associate professor in the departments of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics. In 1987, he gained worldwide recognition as the principal surgeon in the 22-hour separation of twins conjoined at the back of the head from Germany. In 1997, he led a 50-member medical team in the successful but very difficult separation of 11-month-old Zambian twins also conjoined at the head.

Recently, Carson was a consulting surgeon on the team attempting to separate adult Iranian twins conjoined at the head. Millions around the world followed the operation. Although the patients did not live, Carson stressed the advanced medical knowledge gained from the procedure and the humanity of trying to provide a livable life for patients desperately seeking a degree of normality. He operates on 300 children annually.

Carson was born in Detroit to a woman who dropped out of school in the third grade and married at age 13. When he was 8, his parents divorced, and his mother worked two and sometimes three jobs to support him and his brother. When his grades began to falter, his mother became determined to turn his and his brother's lives around. She limited television and required her sons to read two library books each week and give her written reports, even though she could barely read what they had written. Carson soon became a voracious learner.

Carson went on to earn his bachelor's degree in psychology from Yale University in 1973 and his medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1977. He has written three best-selling books, Gifted Hands, the story of his personal achievements; Think Big, which encourages readers to develop their intellectual potential; and The Big Picture, which takes a close-up look at a professional surgeon’s life and offers his perspectives on priorities, race, society, and faith.

Carson's accomplishments have earned him numerous awards, including selection as a Living Legend by the Library of Congress and one of America's top 20 physicians and scientists by CNN and TIME magazine in 2001. He also is a member of the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans and the American Academy of Achievement and on the board of directors of the Kellogg Co. and a fellow of the Yale Corp., the governing body of Yale University. He is president and co-founder with his wife, Candy, of the Carson Scholars Fund, which recognizes young people of all backgrounds for exceptional and humanitarian accomplishments.

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