Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:
We are just about two months away from the 2022 SPS Graduation Ceremony! I’m sure you are as excited as I am in anticipation of our first in-person celebration since 2019.
On May 13, SPS is hosting two ceremonies to ensure the most intimate and personal experience for our graduates. To that end, we have selected two distinguished faculty members to deliver two separate faculty addresses: Len Elmore, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Sports Management; and Dr. Robert Klitzman, Bioethics Program Director and Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Each will bring a unique lens to the remarkable and historic time during which this year’s graduating class have spent studying at Columbia.
Len Elmore will speak during our morning ceremony and address students graduating from the following programs: Applied Analytics; Construction Administration; Human Capital Management; Insurance Management; Negotiation and Conflict Resolution; Sports Management; Technology Management; and Wealth Management.
Elmore is an attorney and a former professional basketball player who is a sports television announcer with a long career as a college basketball analyst for ESPN, CBS Sports, and Fox Sports. Elmore attended the University of Maryland, where he was named an All-American on the basketball team, then went on to play for ten years with the American Basketball Association and National Basketball Association. He was the first NBA player to graduate from Harvard Law School and worked as a prosecutor in Kings County, New York. He has served as Of Counsel and Senior Counsel with several noted law firms; as the principal in a sports management company; and as a private sector business leader. Elmore presently serves as a director on the public company board of 1800Flowers.com and is a commissioner on the Knight Commission for Intercollegiate Athletics, where he chairs the Racial Equity Task Force. In August 2020, Len was appointed to the Board of Advisors for The Shirley Povich Center at the University of Maryland College Park Merrill School of Journalism. At the 2019 SPS Graduation Ceremony Elmore was awarded the 2019 Dean’s Excellence Award for Faculty.
Dr. Robert Klitzman will speak during our afternoon ceremony, and address students graduating from the following programs:Actuarial Science; Bioethics; Enterprise Risk Management; Information and Knowledge Strategy; Narrative Medicine; Nonprofit Management; Strategic Communication; Sustainability Management; and Sustainability Science.
Dr. Klitzman co-founded and for five years co-directed the Columbia University Center for Bioethics and directed the Ethics and Policy Core of the HIV Center for ten years. He has published more than 160 scientific journal articles, nine books, and numerous chapters on critical issues in bioethics including genetics, neuroethics, HIV prevention, research ethics, and doctor-patient relationships. Dr. Klitzman has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation; the Russell Sage Foundation; the Commonwealth Fund; the Aaron Diamond Foundation; and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Commission and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Research Ethics Advisory Panel. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a regular contributor to the New York Times and CNN.
I am proud and grateful for the opportunity to introduce these two remarkable faculty members to graduating students who have not yet had the privilege of learning from them. We are in store for a monumental graduation day.
Sincerely,
Troy
