• Oscar and three-time Emmy Award-winning composer Bill Conti, a graduate of the LSU School of Music, spoke at the College of Music & Dramatic Arts ceremony; Russel L. Honoré, a retired lieutenant general and 33rd commanding general of the U.S. First Army at Fort Gillem, Ga., spoke at the LSU E. J. Ourso College of Business ceremony; Bob Schieffer, longtime CBS News correspondent and moderator of “Face the Nation,” spoke at the Manship School of Mass Communication; and Secretary Stephen Moret of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, or LED, an LSU mechanical engineering alumnus, spoke at the College of Engineering ceremony.
  
  
• In addition to Schieffer’s keynote address, the Manship School of Mass Communication ceremony also featured alumna Rebecca Roubion signing “Believe,” a song that she wrote for LSU. Roubion was a STRIPES leader in 2006 and the song is played each year during STRIPES.
  
  
• Twenty cadets – eight cadets commissioned from the LSU Army ROTC program, nine from the Air Force ROTC program and three LSU cadets commissioned from the Southern University Navy ROTC program – were officially commissioned at a separate ceremony on Thursday, May 17.