More than 380 students were eligible to participate in the University's summer commencement program on Aug. 3. Jen E. Boyle, Ph.D., an English professor and the 2018 HTC Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecturer, gave the commencement address. 

Boyle spoke on the topic of "Truth and Truth Telling," relating this theme to her work as a professor of English and her specialty in new media. She described the importance and the challenges involved in searching for and interpreting truth in contemporary life. She encouraged the graduates to hold on to those moments from their collegiate education when they experienced decisive insights into truth.

"Write that peer, faculty or staff member that was part of some transversal truth, large or small, and let them know," she said. "Because I can tell you it's those moments that keep me getting up in the morning to collectively share this sometimes stumbling and difficult pursuit of truth with you. Speak your truths."

Boyle, this year's recipient of the HTC Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecturer Award, teaches and writes about questions of media transformation and theories of mediation. Her scholarship and teaching explore "new" media objects and performance; bodies and technology; and the virtual and material flows of objects and information through networks, from the 17th century to the digital present.