Queens College’s 88th commencement will be held on the Flushing campus quad at 9 a.m. on Thursday, May 31 with more than 2,500 degrees to be handed out.
The graduation speaker will be Howie Rose, the radio voice of the Mets and the TV announcer for the Islanders. A 1977 graduate of Queens College, Rose was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Bayside, where he attended Benjamin Cardozo High School.
An honorary doctorate will be presented to Sara Miller McCune, a 1961 graduate, who went on to become an academic publishing magnate and philanthropist.
McCune heads SAGE, an independent global publishing empire and a charitable foundation that funds grassroots projects whichcreates educational opportunities for the poor and underserved in the California counties where she lives and works.
“Since my graduation I have realized again and again what an amazing education I received and how much of my subsequent career was built on that foundation,” McCune said.
Among those graduating are Nelson Gil of Corona, who fled the Dominican Republic with his family and lived on food stamps, but is now going to medical school; and Yakov Yabukov, a native of Uzbekistan, who is the student commencement speaker.
Yabukov of Rego Park will graduate with a 4.0 average and will study dentistry at Columbia University in the fall. Both his parents are dentists.
“I feel very lucky to be in this country,” he said. “I think my future would have turned out quite differently if I still lived in Uzbekistan.”
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