UofM Will Award 638 Degrees at Summer Commencement Aug. 10 

August 1, 2019 - The University of Memphis will award 638 degrees, including 51 doctorates, at its summer Commencement Saturday, Aug. 10. Ceremonies begin at 9 a.m. at FedExForum.

The speaker will be Dr. Aram Goudsouzian, UofM professor of history and recipient of the 2019 Willard R. Sparks Eminent Faculty Award.

A historian of the 20th-century United States with a particular focus on race, politics and culture, Goudsouzian is the author of five books: The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America; Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear; King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution; The Hurricane of 1938 ; and Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon.

He is also co-editor, with Charles McKinney, of the essay collection An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee, and the editor of Karnig Panian’s Goodbye, Antoura: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide. His essays and journal articles have analyzed essential figures of American history including James Meredith, Babe Ruth, Wilma Rudolph, Wilt Chamberlain, Sidney Poitier and Bill Russell.

Goudsouzian earned his BA from Colby College, his MA in history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his PhD in history from Purdue University. He came to the University of Memphis in 2004 and just finished his six-year term as the chair of the Department of History. Prior to that, he was the Director of the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities.