Convocation Sept. 8 will welcome newest members to Bryant University campus

August 26th, 2010

New English bulldog mascot will help greet first-year students, transfer students and new biochemistry professor

SMITHFIELD, R.I. - One incoming student appeared in "One Hour Photo." Another carried the Olympic torch in Beijing. Sixteen new students are from India and eight are from Ghana. They and more than 900 other first-year and transfer students will be welcomed into the Bryant University community on Wednesday, Sept. 8, as part of the University's Opening Convocation.

The event begins at 3 p.m. with a procession of faculty, administrators and new students who will parade past the Archway where President Ronald K. Machtley and Ironclad Tupper 1, Bryant's new bulldog mascot, will greet them. The procession then enters a tent on the campus green where Vice President for Academic Affairs José-Marie Griffiths will preside. President Machtley, who has been at the helm of Bryant for nearly 15 years, will present an address titled "Character: The Heart of a Bryant Education."

(Heavy rain will cancel the procession.)

Opening Convocation also formally introduces new faculty members to the Bryant community. This year, biochemist Christopher Reid, Ph.D., joins the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Science and Technology as an assistant professor. Reid previously was a research associate at the Canadian National Research Council's (NRC) Institute for Biological Sciences and an adjunct professor at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. As a member of the NRC's Carbohydrate Therapeutics Group, Reid worked on carbohydrate-based drug discovery and development of new tools and processes for glycoengineering. Reid received his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Guelph in 2005.

About Bryant's student body

Numbers are for AY 2009-2010. Data regarding the Class of 2014 will not be confirmed until October 2010.

• Total enrollment: 3,598
• Student body is 60 percent male, 40 percent female
• Minority representation is about 17 percent
• Students come from 35 states and 51 countries
• International students represent almost 8 percent of the student body

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Keywords: Class of 2014, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Science and Technology, events, new faculty, Opening Convocation