Dec 3, 2015 2 min read

California University of Pennsylvania will mark its 181st commencement with separate ceremonies for undergraduate and graduate students.

Ceremonies for graduate students will be held at 7 p.m. Dec. 11 in the Cal U. Convocation Center. Ceremonies for bachelor’s and associate degree candidates will begin at 10 a.m. Dec. 12, also in the Convocation Center.

More than 565 undergraduates and 645 graduate students will receive degrees, although not all will attend the ceremonies.

In keeping with Cal U.’s tradition of inviting distinguished alumni to address graduates, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Alan R. Lynn, Class of 1979, will speak at both ceremonies.

Lynn recently stepped into dual roles as director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, a combat support agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, and commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Networks, based at Fort Meade, Md.

As DISA’s director, he leads a global organization of some 15,000 civilian and military personnel responsible for the U.S. military’s command-and-control capabilities, and an information technology infrastructure that directly supports the President, Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commanders, Department of Defense components, and other mission partners.

As commander of Joint Force Headquarters-DoDIN, Lynn is responsible for coordinating efforts to secure and defend key elements of the military’s worldwide network of computer systems. The year-old Joint Force Headquarters works cooperatively in cyberspace with a number of other military organizations.

Lynn holds a master’s degree in national resource management from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Cal U., where he was an ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate.