In characteristically late fashion, the University announced today who will be giving Georgetown’s 2013 commencement addresses. Each school has a separate speaker and the list includes several scholars, journalists, high-ranking government officials, and a sitting head of state.

The School of Foreign Service’s commencement speaker will be President Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania. She was inaugurated as the first female president of the Balkan Baltic state in 2009. She’s known as the “Iron Lady” (of Lithuania) and is credited with pulling the country out of its economic crisis after 2008, doing so without taking financial aid from the International Monetary Fund. “I never really had this goal—to become president,” she said. “I saw Lithuania sliding deeply into crisis, and I wanted to help the government get our country out of those troubles.” She also holds a black belt in karate.

The School of Nursing and Health Studies gets Dr. Lisa Simpson (not to be confused with the Simpson’s television character), the president and CEO of AcademyHealth, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institution dedicated to advancing the field of health services research. According to her bio page, “Dr. Simpson has worked to raise the visibility of the field of health services research and its contributions to improving the quality, value and accessibility of care, reducing disparities, and improving health.” (All Vox got from that was that she likes health.)

The commencement speaker for the McDonough School of Business will be Senator William Cowan, Democrat from Massachusetts. He was appointed by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to fill the seat that John Kerry vacated when he became secretary of state. A prominent lawyer in Massachusetts, he served as Patrick’s chief legal counsel for two years from January 2011 to November 2012.

Finally, Georgetown College’s speaker will be Lisa Shannon, the founder of Run for Congo Women and the Thousand Sisters Campaign. According to her bio page, she was the “first national grassroots activist in the United States working to raise awareness of the forgotten humanitarian crisis in Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Run for Congo Women has sponsored over 1,400 war-affected women from the Congo and raised over $12 million.

Needless to say, this year’s crop of graduation speakers is bound to be less controversial than last year’s affair.

See the rest of the commencement speakers after the jump.

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This afternoon, Georgetown announced the speakers for each school’s commencement address. Here is the list:

David Simon, creator of the critically acclaimed television dramas “The Wire” and “Treme” will be speaking to the College.

Dr. Mark Green, senior director of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and former ambassador to Tanzania is the speaker for the School of Nursing & Health.

Ela R. Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association, the largest union in India, and a consultant for UNICEF, will address the School of Foreign Service.

Tim O’Shaughnessy (B ’04), CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial will be speaking to the McDonough School of Business.

The speaker for the senior convocation is Helen O’Really (F ’03), current judicial clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

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Last Saturday, the Gulf Times reported that the Georgetown Unviersity University School of Foreign Service-Qatar had graduated its third class of undergraduates. As in previous years, University President John DeGioia delivered the commencement address to the class of 46.

In his address, DeGioia told the graduates, “When we live our lives at the frontiers, we work at the forefront of the possible. We seek out new learning and knowledge, new ways of leading and being, new ways of understanding others and ourselves. We embrace the tensions and ambiguities created by the unexplored to address the greatest challenges before us.”

Thirty-three of the graduates were majors in international politics, while 13 majored in culture and politics. These were the only majors available at the satellite campus until international economics was added this year.

Approximately 38 percent of the students hailed from Qatar, but the U.S., Canada, India, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a handful of other Arab states were also represented at the podium.

Photo: Gulf Times

Remember how five Georgetown Law Center grads went on NPR‘s “All Things Considered” last summer to commiserate about their employment opportunities? We guess they didn’t know about GULC’s post-grad funding program.

As initially reported by Above the Law, graduates who worked full-time at public interest organizations for three months were eligible for $4,000 stipends from GULC. In late October, students learned that the program was recently extended for three more months. According to an email sent to students by GULC’s Office of Career Services, qualifying students will be able to receive another $4,000.

“[A] requirement of the funding is that you continue to seek full-time employment,” read the email.

However, Above the Law notes that the funding program has not run smoothly; one tipster alleged that his stipend, which was smaller than he expected due to tax processing, arrived months late.

A GULC official responded to the claims, arguing, “The amount of taxes withheld varied significantly based on the student’s particular situation and in some cases, no taxes were withheld.”

Although Vox is certain that some members of the class of 2010 will disagree with its assessment, Bloomberg Businessweek named Georgetown’s home city as second only to Houston in terms of entry-level job opportunities.

D.C. made some serious strides compared to the 2009 rankings, when the city was considered the 19th-best in the nation. Businessweek boasts that government jobs are recession-proof, but points to the city’s high cost of living and unemployment rates to explain why it fell short of the number one spot.

Surprisingly, Houston topped list despite an average starting salary $10,000 lower than the average in D.C.

So, the message is clear—stay in D.C. if you can. (Here’s looking at you, Class of 2011!)

Photo by Flickr user “nostri-imago” used under a Creative Commons license.

On Friday’s broadcast of NPR‘s “All Things Considered,” host Robert Siegel spoke with five Georgetown Law students who found themselves in unexpected positions after graduating earlier this week.

The five graduates estimated that they each sent out “hundreds” of resumes, yet have all struggled to find jobs, according to Joel Florescu (LAW ’10).

Florescu claimed that the economic problems within the legal industry may have hit other schools previously, but are only now starting to impact Georgetown Law.

“I think that for a lot of the schools below us, it was a struggle for a very long time. Now, their struggle has become our struggle. Now, we have to deal with the same sort of problems that they have been facing,” he said.

Some took a unique approach to the poor job market—Aaron Rowden (LAW ’10) intends to run for the Maine State Legislature, while Becca Richardson (LAW ’10) will be working for the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, a small federal agency.

The reality of the job market seemed to surprise the former students, who expected to make lots of money, quickly.

“I don’t know what I necessarily expected my job prospects would be, but I certainly thought I would be making, you know, six figures the first year out,” Jason Lewis (LAW ’10) said. “That is not going to be the case.”

Sorry, Jason. Maybe you should try freezing yourself in a block of ice?

Photo from Flickr user umjanedoan used under a Creative Commons license.

Last Saturday, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service-Qatar graduated its second undergraduate class. President John DeGioia was on hand to award diplomas to the 31 members of the graduating class.

In his keynote address, DeGioia told the graduates, “Commencement is a beginning, a stepping forward into a world that desperately needs your skills, your dreams and your passions.”

The ceremony had its own political celebrity sighting when Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, arrived for the ceremony along with members of the Qatari Royal Family. (Editor’s Note:  For all of you non-SFSers, this is akin to the Obama family showing up at commencement.)

The Class of 2010 had 23 International Politics majors and 8 Culture and Politics majors, the only two majors currently offered by SFS-Q.  The graduates also represented 11 countries, such as Mauritania, Poland, and the U.S., and a handful of Middle Eastern states.

This also marked the end of the first year SFS-Q was without its founding dean, James Reardon-Anderson, who returned to the main campus this year.

Photo by the Gulf Times.