Largest Class in FSU History Receives Degrees
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ayetteville State University (FSU) graduated its largest class in history with more than 570 graduates receiving degrees. The event was held May 7 in the Crown Coliseum. Speaker for the 144th Spring Commencement was Deputy U.S. Secretary of Education Antony Wilder Miller, who spoke in the absence of his boss, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Duncan became ill the day before commencement exercises and was unable to make the trip. Duncan assured FSU Chancellor James A. Anderson that he would serve as speaker at a future FSU event. Miller, however, stepped in and delivered a message that charged graduates to remember FSU and the education that it provided them. He told graduates to expect career paths with twists and turns and told them to be ready to adapt. He also told the class that it has an obligation to help improve education, whether through teaching, fundraising, mentoring or politics. “Take your education,” he said, “and pay it forward.” In this role as Deputy U.S. Secretary of Education, Miller manages a broad range of operational, management and program functions. Prior to joining the Department in 2009, Miller was an operating partner with Silver Lake, a leading private equity firm. From 2003 to 2006, he was with LRN Corporation, a compliance software and eLearning company, where he was executive vice president of operations. Prior to LRN, he worked for 10 years at McKinsey & Company, where he was a partner specializing in growth strategies, operating performance improvement and restructuring for companies throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Miller began 22
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his professional career with Delco Electronics, a subsidiary of GM Hughes Electronics, where he managed regional channel marketing. In addition to his private-sector operating experience, Miller advised the Los Angeles Unified School District from 1997 to 2000, developing student achievement goals and strategies, aligning budgets and operating plans, and designing metrics and processes for overseeing district-wide performance. He undertook similar work with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District in 2001. Through his service as an ex-officio member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Budget and Finance Committee in 2002–03, he deepened his understanding of state funding and school district budgeting matters. Commencement also had a bit of history. Four graduates were named class valedictorian. Each had perfect 4.0 grade point averages. Briana Murrell finished in two years after graduating from Cross Creek Early College High School on the FSU campus in 2009. Briana was valedictorian of the first graduating class at Cross Creek Early High School. She earned a degree in mass communications and plans to go to Syracuse University to get a master’s degree in journalism, which she might earn by the time she’s 21 years old. Her mother, Charmaine Murrell, also graduated with honors. Charmaine Murrell said she and her daughter didn’t plan the dual graduation. She graduated from Fayetteville Technical Community College in 2006 and was initially a political