University Will Award 3552 Degrees Today Before Estimated Audience of 15,000 in Yard

President Pusey will confer academic degrees this morning on 3,552 students from the College and graduate schools at the University's 312th commencement exercises in Tercentenary Theater. An estimated 15,000 people are expected to attend.

The ceremony will be preceded by the traditional procession--in full academic garb--of the officers and Faculty of the University, deans, honorally degree candidates, and distinguished guests, led by the University Marshal, J. Hampden Robb '21, and the She riffs of Middlesex and Suffolk counties. Graduating seniors will line the route of the procession in front of University Hall and up to the entrance of Tercentenary Theater, in the new Yard. In case of rain, ceremonies will be held in Sanders Theater.

Honorary degree recipients, the University's most closely-guarded secret, will be confirmed at the annual special meeting of the Board of Overseers this morning, and will be announced by president Pusey toward the end of the exercises. One honorary winner will be chosen to speak this afternoon at 123d annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association at 1:45 p.m. in the Yard.

In the past there have been two speakers, but University officials felt the afternoon exercises were dragging on for too long.

The procession itself will form at 9:30 a.m. in the Old Yard. A special feature will be the arrival of the Governor of Massachusetts, Endicott "Chub" Peabody '42, in a horse drawn carriage reviving a pre-World War 1 custom. Peabody will be escorted from the State House on Beacon Hill to Johnston Gate, outside Massachusetts Hall, by the scarlet-coated National Lancers of Massachusetts. For the first time the Lancers will ride into the Yard itself, entering through Thayer Gate and parading around Memorial Church before the seated guests. Peabody and President Pusey will also speak at the Alumni Association meeting this afternoon.

"Give Us Order"

When the procession ends about 10 a.m., the University Marshal will call: "Mr. Sheriff, pray give us order." The sheriff will do so; and after the invocation and addresses in English and Latin by Lewis B. Kaden '63, Norman E. Thurston '63, and Whitney II. Garard 3L, President Pusey will admit the Class of 1963 "to the fellowship of educated men."

In the College 1,094 seniors will receive Bachelor of Arts degrees, but Pusey will present diplomas only to the class representatives. The rest of the seniors will receive their degrees from the Masters in noon ceremonies at the Houses.

More Honors Degrees

Sixty-four per cent of the Class of '63 will graduate with honors as compared with 59 per cent of last year's seniors. The great increase in honors winners in both Harvard and Radcliffe is due to the liberalization of College rules regarding the Cum Laude in General Studies degree.

This year's class also includes 21 magna cum laude degrees, six magna highest degrees, and 35 summa cum laudes--the highest in the history of the College.

The graduate schools will award the following degrees: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 775; Education, 145; Design, 67; Business, 619; Medicine, 131; Dental, 11; Public Health, 61; Law, 546; Divinity, 31.

Two Bachelor of Science degrees and 14 Bachelor of Arts in Extension Studies degrees will also be awarded.

The order of the academic procession is as follows: the University Marshal, the Sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk Counties, the President and Fellows of the University, the Overseers, the Governor and his military staff, deans of the departments, honorary degree candidates, professors, other faculty members and officers of the University, former professors, Phi Beta Kappa orator and poet, trustees of the Hopkins Fund, preachers to the University, local ministers, United Ministry Members, college presidents, State Commissioner of Education, U.S. Congressmen, Armed Forces officers, State Supreme Court judges, Court of Appeals judges, Lieutenant Governor, president of Associated Harvard Clubs, former honorary recipients, representatives of the mayors of Boston and Cambridge, Cambridge city manager and superintendent of schools, visiting dignitaries, and the seniors