CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Southern Illinois University Carbondaleís commencement exercises are set for May 7-10.

There are 2,853 candidates for bachelorís degrees, 422 candidates for masterís degrees, 38 doctoral degree candidates, 104 law degree candidates, and 19 candidates for associate degrees.

Commencement ceremonies are open to the public, and tickets are not required.

Barbara Lesar, a longtime supporter of the University, will receive a Distinguished Service Award during commencement ceremonies for the SIU School of Law.

Lesarís tireless contributions and work throughout the University community are well known. She participated in many University events when her first husband, the late Dr. Richard Thomas, was a faculty member. After he passed away, Lesar later married the School of Lawís founding dean, Hiram H. Lesar, and her involvement with SIUC continued to grow.

Lesar, who is 90, is an active member of the law schoolís Board of Visitors, and she attends every law school event. She is co-chair of the law schoolís fund-raising committees working to endow a professorship in her late husbandís honor. She serves on the Friends of WSIU Advisory Board, where she served as its president, and also on the Morris Library Board of Visitors from September 1997 until January 2006.

She is also a faithful contributor to many units on campus, including Intercollegiate Athletics, the College of Applied Sciences and Arts, the College of Education and Human Services, the SIU Foundation, the SIU School of Law, the College of Liberal Arts, the Dorothy Morris Garden, Morris Library, University Museum, Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, Student Affairs, and WSIU Public Broadcasting.

Commencement speakers include the immediate past president of the oldest and largest national association of predominately African American lawyers and judges; the vice provost for academic services at The Johns Hopkins University; the president and CEO of an oil and gas exploration and production company; and an alumnus with more than three decades in foreign service. In most instances the commencement speakers provided their own biographies.

Eight alumni will receive Alumni Achievement Awards as part of individual college and school ceremonies. The award is the highest honor presented by the SIU Alumni Association.

Saturday, May 9

College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, 1:30 p.m., Shryock Auditorium.

Leonard J. Baldyga, who served more than three decades in foreign service in Washington, D.C., and overseas, will give the address and receive the Alumni Achievement Award.

Baldyga is a senior consultant for central and east European programs at the International Research and Exchanges Board -- a consortium of nearly 150 American universities and colleges. Among its services, the organization provides field research opportunities for American specialists and analysts.

A 1959 graduate in communications from SIUC, Baldyga is a former director of the Office of European Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency. Among his assignments during his foreign service was as the agencyís principal negotiator of bilateral cultural and scientific agreements with the Soviet Bloc between 1979 and 1983. He holds a masterís degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Prior to entering foreign service in 1962, Baldyga worked in journalism and publishing as a financial writer, city editor, and assistant to the publisher, with numerous overseas assignments. Baldyga is on the board of directors of the Sabre Foundation, Partners for Democratic Change, and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the executive committee of the National Polish-American-Jewish American Council. Baldygaís wife, Joyce Brinkley Baldyga, earned a bachelorís degree in journalism from SIUC in 1959.

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