JOHNSON CITY – East Tennessee State University will confer some 1,400 degrees during Commencement Exercises on Saturday, Dec. 14 at the Mini-Dome.

Dr. Lori Meier, winner of the 2019 ETSU Distinguished Faculty Award, will be the keynote speaker for the 10 a.m. ceremony, and veteran actor Patrick Cronin, who is retiring from ETSU this month, will present the 3 p.m. Commencement address.

The Distinguished Faculty Award is the highest honor presented to an ETSU faculty m ember.  Meier currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Clemmer College.  During her career at ETSU, she twice received the Outstanding Faculty Award for Teaching within the Clemmer College (2015 and 2019), as well as the college’s Faculty Award for Diversity and the Excellence in Teaching Award from ETSU’s student chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success in 2018.

In 2018, Meier was selected by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to serve as a Solar System Ambassador and used that volunteer outreach program position to support her teaching of undergraduate social studies and support a number of local schools and organizations as well as ETSU.

Within her department, Meier is the graduate program coordinator for the Master of Education in Elementary Education Program and interim coordinator of the Master of Education in Educational Technology Program.  She has published numerous articles and presents regularly on innovative teaching practices at meetings of such professional associations as the American Educational Research Association, National Council for the Social Studies, American Association for Teaching Curriculum and more.

Meier, who earned her M.A.T. at ETSU, also holds a B.A. in English from Milligan College and a doctor of education degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Central Florida.  Before joining the ETSU faculty in 2008, she taught in elementary schools in Kingsport and Melbourne, Florida, and was a literacy trainer within the Brevard Public Schools system in Melbourne.

Cronin arrived on the ETSU campus in the spring of 1999 as the holder of the Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric and Science.  The appointment was for only one semester, but because he enjoyed his time at ETSU so much, he decided to make Johnson City his new home when a tenure-track position in theater at the university became available.

Throughout his career, Cronin, who is a member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA (Actor’s Equity), has appeared in over 200 television shows and films, including “Seinfeld,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Home Improvement,” “All in the Family,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Alice” and “LA Law.”  He received Emmy nominations for his performances in “The Wonder Years” and “Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter.”

At ETSU he has directed numerous productions including “The Crucible,” “Other Desert Cities,” “Our Town,” Beautiful Bodies” and “Forever Plaid,”   Last month, he appeared on stage at ETSU as the grandfather in “You Can’t Take It With You,” a show which has was especially important in Cronin’s life.  Not only had he previously directed it at ETSU and played the same role at a nearby professional theater, but the show is written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, whose granddaughter, the late actress Beatrice Colen, was married to Cronin.

While at ETSU he met and later married Dr. Amber Kinser, who is Chair of the Department of Communication and Performance.

Information about livestreaming, parking, security and other information is available at https://www.etsu.edu/reg/graduation/ceremony.php.