Number of graduates: 754 undergraduates.

Interesting fact: Graduated first class of its new international business major.

Keynote speaker: Former President George H.W. Bush, who thanked Bryant trustee and 1985 graduate David M. Beirne for transporting him from his home in Maine on Beirne’s private airplane. Bush said to the graduates: “There’s a lot of pessimistic talk out there today, but you won’t hear it from me. We are still the greatest nation in the world.”

Honorary degree recipients: Bush (Doctor of Humane Letters); Fan Jianchuan, a Chinese army officer, scholar and businessman who is personally building a historical and cultural museum so vast it was described as China’ Smithsonian (Doctor of Business Administration); and Roxanne Spillet, head of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, which she is credited with turning into the fastest growing youth development program in the country for disadvantaged children (Doctor of Humane Letters).

Link to online list of graduates: http://www.bryant.edu