President to address summer graduates

President Michael Shannon will serve as keynote speaker for the University of North Georgia's (UNG) summer commencement ceremony, set for 5 p.m. Aug. 4.

Nearly 300 graduates will participate in commencement at the Convocation Center at UNG's Dahlonega Campus.

Shannon, a retired U.S. Army officer, became president of UNG on July 1, after serving as interim executive vice president for administration and finance and interim chief business officer at Georgia Tech.

Prior to his interim role, Shannon served as Georgia Tech's vice president and deputy chief business officer.

A native of New Jersey, Shannon is a first-generation college graduate and was commissioned through Army ROTC. He holds a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering and a master's degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. He also holds a master's degree in health physics and a Ph.D. in nuclear and radiological engineering from Georgia Tech.

Shannon served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for 20 years and retired in 2015 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. After operational Army service as an Infantry and Signal Corps officer with assignments in the 82nd Airborne Division, the 35th Signal Brigade (18th Airborne Corps) and the 2nd Infantry Division, he was selected to serve as a U.S. Army Nuclear and Counterproliferation officer.

For more than 10 years he provided leadership and technical and operational expertise to the U.S. Department of Defense as an expert in nuclear technology issues and later held leadership assignments with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Shannon also taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as an instructor and later as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Nuclear Engineering.

In his role as a member of Georgia Tech's executive leadership team, Shannon was responsible for strategic leadership and operations including administrative functions such as human resources, finance and budget, information technology, facilities and infrastructure, capital planning, campus security and emergency response. He served in numerous faculty, leadership and advisory roles, including as a research faculty member and principal investigator in the Advanced Concepts Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Graduates are encouraged to arrive one hour before their ceremony dressed in their gown and cap with its tassel.

To attend, all guests 2 years old and older must have a ticket. Each graduate is issued up to seven tickets, which can be printed or shown electronically.

For those unable to attend the in-person event, the ceremonies will be streamed live on UNG's Facebook page. UNG encourages everyone to celebrate their graduates with the hashtag #UNG23grad on social media.

Individual commissioning ceremonies for members of the Corps of Cadets entering the U.S. Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve will be held on Aug. 2 at the Pennington Military Leadership Center. The events will recognize their service and leadership and formally mark their entrance into the military as second lieutenants. These graduates will also be commissioned collectively during the commencement ceremony.