Stanford Business School Honors 79th Graduating Class

More than 450 candidates for graduate and doctoral degrees participated in the 79^th spring commencement of the Stanford Graduate School of Business on June 12 in Frost Amphitheater.

The diploma ceremony honored the individuals awarded degrees this academic year: 381 received Masters of Business Administration (MBA), 4 of them joint degrees from Stanford’s School of Law, and 13 joint degrees from Stanford’s School of Education; 19 received doctorates; 7 received the degree of Master of Arts in Business Research (MA BR) which recognizes the accomplishments of students who enter but do not complete the doctoral program, yet complete work equivalent to a master’s degree; and 54 graduates of the Stanford Sloan Program received the Master of Science in Management (MS) degree.

Of the MBA graduates, 37 learned that they had achieved distinction as Arjay Miller Scholars. In honor of the fourth dean of the Business School who was on hand to personally congratulate them, Arjay Miller Scholars are ranked in the top 10 percent of their class by academic performance. (See below for link to a list of their names.)

At the top of the class, Timothy Raphael O’Hara was named the Henry Ford II Scholar and presented with a check for $15,000. O’Hara majored in Cognitive Science as an undergraduate at University of Virginia.

Honored by her peers, Lisa Hersch accepted the Ernest C. Arbuckle Award from Susan Arbuckle, youngest daughter of the late third dean of the Business School. Judged by classmates as having contributed most to the fulfillment of the goals of the business school by her active participation, initiative, leadership and personal integrity, Hersch was praised by her peers as an “unsung hero” who tirelessly facilitated and led numerous projects and events, including the South Africa study trip, the entrepreneurship conference, and the arts, media and entertainment trek to New York. She also served as an I Had a Dream mentor, and reported for the student newspaper. “As co-chair of the View From The Top speaker series, she elevated the program to a new level,” Arbuckle noted, often dealing with last minute speakers; under her watch, the series welcomed former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said Arbuckle.

Johannes Richard Haller received the Alexander A. Robichek Student Achievement Award in Finance, named for an early finance professor and selected by the finance faculty for excellence in coursework in the discipline. Haller also holds a master’s degree in business and economics from Freie Universitaet, Berlin.

Special recognition was given to graduates who took on extra coursework to complete the certificate program in Global Management, dedicated to global issues and international business. Among the 126 recipients, 24 Sloan fellows received certificates. Similarly, certificates of completion were awarded to a record 134 graduates who passed the course of study in the Public Management Program, created under the leadership of Dean Emeritus Arjay Miller in 1971 to train leaders for the public sector.