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Fort Lewis College Commencement to be held April 29
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| Mr. Kevin Gover |
Fort Lewis College Spring Commencement will take place on Saturday, April 29. Two ceremonies will be held to accommodate the graduates, both in Whalen Gym. The first begins at 8:30 a.m. with the second following at 11:30 a.m. A list of which majors will be featured at each ceremony can be found at www.fortlewis.edu/graduation.
Over 500 Skyhawks will take that important and exciting walk across the stage and graduate. Addressing them as Commencement Speaker will be Kevin Gover, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Mr. Gover is a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and attended Princeton University, receiving his bachelor’s degree in public and international affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University in 1978. He then attended the University of New Mexico College of Law and received his juris doctor degree in 1981.
Following law school, Mr. Gover established a small Native American-owned law firm that specialized in federal Indian law. Gover, Stetson, Williams & West, P.C. grew into the largest Indian-owned law firm in the country and represented tribes and tribal agencies in a dozen states.
In 1997, Mr. Gover was nominated by President Clinton to serve as the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs in the United States Department of the Interior. As the senior executive of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he won praise for his efforts to rebuild long-neglected Indian schools and expand tribal and BIA police forces throughout the country.
In 2003, he joined the faculty at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and served on the faculty of the university’s Indian Legal Program, one of the largest such programs in the country.
Both Commencement ceremonies will be live streamed on YouTube at www.youtube.com/flcdurango.