Cornell President Hunter Rawlings will preside over the university's 128th commencement on Sunday, May 26, at 11 a.m. on Schoellkopf Field.

In his first commencement ceremony since assuming the Cornell presidency on July 1, 1995, Rawlings will confer degrees on almost 6,000 eligible graduates, capping two days of celebratory activities that include a Senior Convocation with an address by environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Saturday, May 25, at noon in Barton Hall.

The Class of 1996 is distinguished by seven graduates who have received prestigious national awards, including a Rhodes Scholarship, three Mellon Foundation Fellowships, Raoul Wallenberg and Luce scholarships, and a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship.

The students are Barnaby Marsh, a College Scholar who grew up in Alaska, recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship; Mellon recipients Eric Chwang of Dallas, Jon Miller of Ithaca and Rosamond King of Potomac, Md.; Karin Klapper of Brooklyn, recipient of the Wallenberg Scholarship; graduate student Maureen Quigley of Ithaca, winner of the Luce Scholarship; and Andrea DeTerra of Eagle River, Alaska, who received the Rotary scholarship. Six of these students will continue their studies next year at Oxford, Princeton, Yale, New York University, Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the University of Seville in Spain, and one -- Quigley -- will work in international development policy in a rural community in Asia.

Commencement weekend events include:

Saturday, May 25:

President's Breakfast Reception: The Board of Trustees and President and Mrs. Rawlings will honor graduates and their families at a breakfast reception on the Arts Quad from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m.

Senior Convocation: To be held in Barton Hall at noon, the convocation to honor graduates and their families will feature an address by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental attorney. He has successfully prosecuted governments and companies for pollution in the Hudson River and Long Island Sound, argued cases to expand citizen access to shorelines and sued sewage treatment plants to force compliance with the Clean Water Act. He serves as chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Kennedy is a clinical professor and supervising attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University Law School.

Also speaking at the convocation will be Senior Class President Erica Gantner.

D.V.M. Hooding Ceremony: Franklin M. Loew, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, will address graduates at the ceremony in Alice Statler Auditorium at 4:30 p.m. The Veterinarian's Oath will be administered by Dr. MacDonald Holmes, president of the New York State Veterinary Medical Society.

Ph.D. Recognition Ceremony: Recipients of doctoral degrees will be individually honored by Rawlings and the Board of Trustees for their significant academic achievements in Barton Hall at 5 p.m. Rawlings and Walter I. Cohen, Graduate School dean, will congratulate each recipient. Degrees will be conferred during the general commencement ceremony on Sunday.

ROTC Commissioning: The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) Brigade will commission officers into the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force during a ceremony in David L. Call Alumni Auditorium, Kennedy Hall, at 4 p.m.

Other special events for graduates and their families on Saturday include tours of Cornell Plantations from 10 a.m. to noon, a Cornell Wind Ensemble concert on the Arts Quad at 3 p.m. and the Senior Week Concert by the Glee Club and Chorus in Bailey Hall at 8:15 p.m.

Sunday, May 26:

Baccalaureate Service: Susannah Heschel of Case Western Reserve will present an address at the service in Bailey Hall at 8:30 a.m. Music will be provided by the Cornell Glee Club, Chorus and Wind Ensemble.

Commencement Procession: Thousands of robed students, faculty, trustees and administrators will assemble on the Arts Quad at 9:30 a.m. and proceed to Schoellkopf Field. Leading the academic procession will be University Marshal J. Robert Cooke, professor of agricultural and biological engineering, and Mace Bearer Jean R. Robinson, professor emeritus of consumer economics and housing.

Commencement Ceremony: The ceremony will take place on Schoellkopf Field from 11 a.m. to noon. Rawlings will confer degrees on approximately 6,000 eligible candidates, including those who completed degree work last August and January.

About 3,400 students are eligible for undergraduate degrees, including 936 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, 139 in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, 1,019 in the College of Arts and Sciences, 551 in the College of Engineering, 212 in the School of Hotel Administration, 371 in the College of Human Ecology and 175 in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Receiving master's and doctoral degrees will be 2,309 students, including 1,710 from the Graduate School, 224 from the Law School, 297 from the Johnson Graduate School of Management and 81 from the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Broadcast: The ceremony will be broadcast live on Ithaca cable television station Channel 54 beginning at 10 a.m. with David Stewart and Keith R. Johnson and on Ithaca radio station WHCU (870 AM) beginning at 11 a.m. The ceremony will be shown on closed-circuit television in Statler Auditorium, Alumni Auditorium in Kennedy Hall, Martha Van Rensselaer Auditorium and the Field House.

Severe weather: In the event of severe weather, commencement will be celebrated in two ceremonies in Barton Hall: at 10:30 a.m. for students from Agriculture and Life Sciences, Arts and Sciences, the Johnson Graduate School of Management and Veterinary Medicine, and at 1 p.m. for students from Architecture, Art and Planning, Engineering, Graduate School, Hotel Administration, Human Ecology and Industrial and Labor Relations.

Roads: Central campus roads will be closed on commencement morning between 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Cornell and Ithaca City Police will direct traffic. Signs directing motorists to parking areas will be posted. The campus buses will be running specific routes from the outer parking areas to the stadium. Additional information will be broadcast on Cornell Info Radio at 530 AM.