For online graduates, it's a first at BU
These Boston University graduates had never studied in Mugar Memorial Library. They had never gathered for coffee at the student union, and they certainly had never set foot inside the majestic limestone interior of Marsh Chapel.
"I never dreamed the campus would be this beautiful," gushed 29-year-old Mikiko Mori, who flew in from Tokyo to collect a master's degree yesterday at commencement ceremonies. "I wish I had attended classes and studied on campus."
Mori is one of about 130 members of the university's first graduating class who completed their entire degrees online. The master of science in criminal justice program is one of three online degree programs at the university, with nearly 2,000 students now studying over the Internet.
The program is evidence that distance learning has emerged as an accepted curriculum at many of the nation's top colleges and universities, with nearly 5 million students nationwide studying through correspondence courses, video classes, or online education, said John Ebersole, associate provost and dean for BU's Division of Extended Education.
Ebersole said distance-learning degrees are meeting an "unmatched level of acceptance."
"Folks, you are stars," Ebersole said to the criminal justice class at a luncheon yesterday after the commencement ceremony at Nickerson Field. "You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of."
The criminal justice class had joined thousands of other BU students on the field, where a soaking rain continued through much of the ceremony. The class of 2004 comprised 5,776 graduates, with 1,779 receiving master's degrees and 706 awarded doctoral degrees.
The university conferred honorary doctoral degrees on Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, stage and screen actor and alumna Alfre Woodard, and US Representative Edward J. Markey. Graduating students sent up a deafening round of applause for New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who picked up an honorary degree for his work as coach and head of a charitable foundation he and his wife founded.
Commencement speaker J. Craig Venter, also an honorary degree recipient, urged the class of 2004 to be risk takers and to maintain their curiosity for living and learning. Venter, a scientist who helped lead the effort to decode the human genome, decried a lack of science education and implored students not to accept the status quo when it comes to disease, poverty, hunger, or terrorism.
"Don't accept going to war and the sacrifice and maiming of young lives when there are clearly other options," he said, to a loud cheer. "Dare to make a difference."
The ceremony marked the first since the early 1970s that John Silber was not university president or chancellor. One month after university trustees said retired presidents should have no role in university leadership and ousted Silber from his offices in the $32 million executive suite, Silber's presence at the university still was evident yesterday, as the president emeritus read the citations for honorary degree recipients.
Campus politics held little meaning for the 70 or so criminal justice graduates who made it to Boston for the ceremony. They spent most of last week just getting to know one another. Jessica Fisher, a 22-year-old from St. Paul, Minn., and Mark Napier, a 42-year-old police officer from Tucson, had e-mailed each other for weeks this spring, trying to get through a grueling statistics course. But the only way they were able to find each other this weekend was by name tags.
"We hugged like we were best friends from years ago," Fisher said, adding that Napier looked just as she had pictured him.
"We're two people that would never have met otherwise," said Napier, who signed up for the criminal justice program at BU because he wanted "a prestigious master's degree."
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com 
