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USC alumna Darla D. Moore, vice president of Rainwater Inc. and a major benefactress to the University's Moore School of Business, will deliver the commencement address and receive and honorary doctor of business administration degree during ceremonies at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 18 in the Colonial Center.
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| Darla Moore |
The University expects to award more than 2,500 degrees to students from all USC campuses, including 11 associate, 1,178 baccalaureate, seven law, 32 graduate certificates, 465 master's, and 11 specialist degrees from the Columbia campus.
Doctoral commencement ceremonies will be held at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 18 in the Koger Center. Fred Medway, a professor in the Department of Psychology, will be the speaker, and 77 degrees will be conferred.
USC Aiken will hold a convocation for graduates at 7 p.m. Dec. 14 in the Student Activities Center Gymnasium. Margo Gore, a USC Aiken alumna and the 2006 Aiken County Teacher of the Year, will be the speaker. USC Aiken has 204 baccalaureate and five master's degree recipients.
USC Upstate will hold a convocation for December graduates at 7 p.m. Dec. 14 in the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium. Sheila S. Breitweiser, president of the S.C. School for the Deaf and Blind, will deliver the address. USC Upstate has 382 baccalaureate degree recipients.
The University also expects to award 11 associate and 47 baccalaureate degrees from USC Beaufort; 26 associate degrees from USC Lancaster; 13 associate degrees from USC Salkehatchie; 29 associate degrees from USC Sumter; and seven associate degrees from USC Union.
After earning a bachelor's degree in political science from USC in 1975, Moore spent six years in Washington, initially in U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond's office, then with the Republican National Committee and, finally, with the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign.
Moore then attended George Washington University where she earned a master's degree in business administration in 1981. In 1982, she began her business career as a management trainee at Chemical Bank in New York. On her way to becoming a managing director, Moore became an expert in "debtor in possession" financing to companies filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and she became the highest paid woman in banking.
Moore was the first woman to be profiled on the cover of Fortune and also was named to that magazine's list of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business.
Moore has increasingly involved herself in public service in her home state of South Carolina. In the mid 1990s, she became a board member of the University's Educational Foundation and a member of the foundation's Investment Policy Committee. She also has served the University as a member of the Business Partnership Foundation. In 1999, she became a gubernatorial appointee to the University's Board of Trustees and continues to serve in that role.
She founded the Palmetto Institute, a private policy research group in South Carolina and has been a strong advocate for higher education and economic development in the state. During the University's Bicentennial Campaign, Moore gave $25 million to the University's business school, which later was named in her honor.
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