MOLINE, Ill. — Two commencement ceremonies for St. Ambrose University-Davenport graduates take place Saturday, May 21, at the TaxSlayer Center.
The graduate hooding and commencement ceremony for 130 graduates receiving master degrees and 39 graduates receiving doctoral degrees begins at 9 a.m. Commencement speaker is Beth Tinsman, founder and CEO of Twin State Technical Services in Davenport and an adjunct instructor in the SAU Computer Information Sciences Department. Tinsman has been an instructor at St. Ambrose since earning her Master of Science in Information Technology in 2012. She founded Twin State Technical Services in 1992. Currently, a quarter of her workforce consists of St. Ambrose graduates.
The undergraduate ceremony begins at 1 p.m. for 401 students. Commencement speaker is Edward Rogalski, a president emeritus of St. Ambrose University. He retired in 2007 after 39 years at St. Ambrose, the final 20 as the university’s 12th president. During his presidency, enrollment increased by 70%, the university added nearly 40 new academic programs and more than a dozen new buildings transformed the campus footprint. The university named the Rogalski Center, a modern campus center, in tribute to Rogalski and his beloved wife, Bobbi, who died in 2021.
During the afternoon ceremony, the university will award the late Patricia VanBruwaene ’74, ’84 MBA with a posthumous honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree. This past April, St. Ambrose University President Amy Novak announced the naming of the Patricia VanBruwaene College of Business in honor of VanBruwaene’s pioneering work as a female leader in the corporate business world.
VanBruwaene died last November at age 71. Her estate included a multi-million dollar gift to St. Ambrose, the largest single donation in university history. St. Ambrose is not identifying the size of the gift at the family’s request.
“Patricia’s appreciation for her St. Ambrose degrees was something she expressed often during her ongoing engagement with the university,” Novak said. “Her generous gift and the example within her life’s work will serve future St. Ambrose business students in significant ways. She is most deserving of this posthumous honor.”
Both commencement ceremonies will be viewable via live-streamed video at www.sau.edu.
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