• Approximately 1,100 students in the undergraduate day school, the School of Continuing Education and the Graduate Studies Program will receive degrees
• O'Hurley and four others -- including three prominent Rhode Islanders -- to receive honorary degrees

Providence, RI  -- Providence College alumnus John O'Hurley, the accomplished television, stage, and film actor perhaps best known as the melodious-voiced catalog king "J. Peterman" on the  popular Seinfeld television program, will be the honored speaker at the College's Eighty-eighth Commencement Exercises on Sunday, May 21, 2006, at the Dunkin' Donuts Center, beginning at 11 a.m.

Joining O'Hurley as recipients of honorary degrees are:

• Edwin Forman, M.D. - the visionary former head of the pediatric hematology and oncology division at Rhode Island Hospital's Hasbro Children's Hospital who was instrumental in developing the hospital's capabilities in pediatric cancer care;
• Rev. Robert J. Randall - the priest, educator, and author who served as a member of the Providence College faculty for over 25 years and established the College's first endowed chair, the Randall Distinguished Professorship in Christian Culture;
• The Honorable Donald F. Shea '50 - a highly-respected justice of the RI Supreme Court (retired) who has a distinguished record of public service as a state legislator and executive assistant to former RI Governor Frank Licht, and is  a Navy veteran of the Normandy Invasion and Battle of Okinawa; and
• Carolyn Woo, Ph.D. - the widely-published scholar who is the Martin J. Gillen Dean of the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, and the Ray and Milann Siegfried Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies there.

A 1976 graduate of Providence College, O'Hurley is an award-winning stage and screen actor and a highly successful business entrepreneur. Profiled in a recent issue of Business Week, O'Hurley said, "I consider myself a corporation with several divisions." Among his active "divisions:" portraying J. Peterman as a pitchman for various products and corporations; serving as part-owner for the real J. Peterman Company; being the principal partner for two venture capital companies, Round One Investments, in Los Angeles, and Heritage Capital Investments, in Atlanta, GA; successfully repositioning several struggling radio stations into profitable enterprises in the emerging Dixie Hispanic market in the South; starring in ABC's hit, Dancing with the Stars; recording a classical CD that debuted in the top twenty on the Billboard Classical charts; hosting the National Dog Show presented by Purina; winning and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for a favorite charity, Golfers Against Cancer; and most recently, starring in the role of Billy Flynn for a three-month run of Chicago on Broadway.

A theatre major at Providence College, O'Hurley has maintained close ties to his alma mater. Looking back on his undergraduate days, he has noted, "What was the most valuable at PC was the fact that I got to do major roles in about thirteen shows. That's unusual in the university setting where graduate students usually get the good roles, leaving only the small parts for undergraduates. PC gave me all the tools I needed to pursue acting."

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Commencement 2006 Press Kit