Chief Justice of Utah Supreme Court keynotes 68th graduation exercises on May 6

Justice Christine M. Durham will be the 68th commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient during the College of Eastern Utah’s ceremonies at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 6 in the Bunnell-Dmitrich Athletic Center. A total of 441 graduates will be awarded degrees or certificates of completion.
Durham has been on the Utah Supreme Court since 1982, and has served as Chief Justice and Chair of the Utah Judicial Council since 2002. She previously served on the state trial court after a number of years in private practice.
She received her A.B. with honors from Wellesley College and a J.D. from Duke University, where she is a member of the Board of Trustees. Currently she serves on the American Bar Association’s Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the entity that accredits American law schools.
She is on the Council of the American Law Institute, and is a Fellow of the American Bar Association. Past professional service includes the governing boards of the National Center for State Courts, the American Inns of Court Foundation, the Appellate Judges Conference of the ABA, the Rand Corporation’s Institute for Civil Justice, the ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession, and the Federal Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure.
She is also a past president of the National Association of Women Judges, and was that organization’s Honoree of the Year in 1997.
Justice Durham has been very active in judicial education, and was a founder of the Leadership Institute in Judicial Education. She currently leads a program in Utah focusing on the restoration of civic education in the public schools.
She has been an adjunct professor for many years at the University of Utah College of Law, teaching state constitutional law, and serves on the Utah Constitutional Revision Commission. She has received honorary degrees from three Utah universities and has been recognized nationally for her work in judicial education and efforts to improve the administration of justice.
CEU’s class of 2006 has 338 students receiving associate of science degrees, 27 associate of arts degrees, 52 associate of applied science degrees, 15 associate of science in business, 22 associate degrees in criminal justice, one associate of science in pre-engineering and 59 certificates of completion.
The ethnicity of the class includes seven Asian, 13 Hispanic, four Native American, one Pacific Islander, and 349 Caucasian.
Ages range from 17 to 58 years old with 440 from Utah and 48 from other states. Females outnumber the males at graduation with 229 females and 153 males.