PROVO -- A Utah businessman and philanthropist and the former director of the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus will be honored during August commencement exercises Thursday at Brigham Young University.
Jon M. Huntsman, chairman and CEO of Huntsman Corp. and founder of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, will be awarded an honorary doctorate of Christian service, while Robert C. Bowden, who led the Mormon Youth Chorus for 25 years, will receive a presidential citation.Margaret D. Nadauld, Young Women's general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a member of the BYU Board of Trustees, will conduct the exercises, which will be presided over by Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. BYU President Merrill J. Bateman will also offer remarks.
Thursday's commencement exercises will open with an academic processional beginning at 3:30 p.m. at the Abraham Smoot Building, followed by the exercises at 4 p.m. in the Marriott Center.
On Friday, individual college convocations will begin at 8 a.m., with the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies in the Joseph Smith Building Auditorium, the David O. McKay School of Education in the Smith Fieldhouse, fine arts and communications in the de Jong Concert Hall, the Marriott School of Management in the Marriott Center and physical and mathematical sciences in the Wilkinson Student Center Ballroom.
At 10:30 a.m., the college convocations will include biology and agriculture in the Wilkinson Student Center Ballroom, engineering and technology in the Smith Fieldhouse, humanities in the Marriott Center and nursing in the Joseph Smith Building Auditorium.
Finishing the day at 1 p.m. will be family, home and social sciences in the Marriott Center and health and human performance in the Smith Fieldhouse.
Also scheduled for Friday is a President's Reception for graduates and their parents from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. in the Museum of Art.
From his executive offices in Salt Lake City, Huntsman oversees operations at 121 international sites. His business, one of the largest privately held companies in the world, produces plastics, petrochemicals, packaging material, textiles and paints.
His many philanthropic pursuits include his recent donation of $100 million -- and his raising of an additional $51 million -- to establish the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, dedicated to finding a cure for cancer based on genetic research.
Bowden recently ended his 25-year tenure with the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus -- with their 25-concerts-a-year schedule -- as those organizations' final conductor with the reorganization and creation of the new Symphony at Temple Square and the Temple Square Chorale.