LTU education creates vast opportunities, Commencement speaker says

LTU education creates vast opportunities, Commencement speaker says

SOUTHFIELD — A prominent attorney, son of a remarkable Lawrence Technological University alumnus, told a tale of three houses at LTU’s 99th Commencement exercises Saturday, Dec. 6.

John Donley, recently retired partner in the international law firm Kirkland & Ellis, told the graduates about the log cabin his great-great-grandfather built in then-rural Macomb County in 1852, as well as the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Affleck House, a living LTU architecture and engineering laboratory since its donation to the university in 1978, and the future houses the graduates will build through their careers.

Donley’s great-grandfather came to America from Ireland as one of thousands of refugees from the 1848 potato famine. He and two brothers built a log cabin along 29 Mile Road in Richmond in 1852. Donley said that cabin became the “mothership” for his family through four generations, seeing some successes — the building of a modern farmhouse across the street in the 1890s — and failures, when Donley’s grandparents and their seven children had to move back into the log cabin in the Great Depression.

Donley recalled how his father Ed got rejected by university after university after his graduation from a small, unaccredited high school, but in August 1939, a letter arrived from Lawrence Tech offering him a full tuition scholarship if he maintained a B+ average.

“He did better than that, he got straight A’s, and went on to a successful career as an engineer, a businessman, and a philanthropist,” Donley said. “That scholarship letter remains a miracle for our family…. All the opportunities I’ve enjoyed in my life have been the fruit of that Lawrence Tech education. I’m living proof your achievements at this school will have ripple effects far into the future.”

Ed Donley, a 1943 LTU mechanical engineering graduate, went on to become chairman and CEO of Allentown, Pa.-based Air Products and Chemicals Inc., a supplier of industrial gases with $12 billion in revenue in its 2024-25 fiscal year. Ed Donley died in 2017 at age 95. The Donley family remains one of LTU’s greatest benefactors — LTU’s North Residence Hall for upper-level students was renamed Donley Hall in 2016.

Donley’s other “houses” were the Affleck House, the Bloomfield HIlls home designed in Wright’s Usonian style — technologically advanced yet affordable — and the homes that will be built through “the professional careers each of you will build over the next 40-50 years.”

Donley noted that “some schools may let students coast from time to time, but not this school. What you have learned is difficult and consequential.” He proceeded to provide an A to Z of the skills LTU students master, from algorithms to zero defect quality control. But he said “the most important thing you learned here is the ability to learn new things, to invent, to innovate, to adapt.”

Donley said while society today faces many challenges, the overall condition of humanity has improved remarkably since the days of that log cabin, in terms of increased literacy, a huge reduction in extreme poverty, and a huge increase in life expectancy.

“None of which is to suggest we’ve got it made here in 2025,” he said. “We face a host of problems economically, technologically, socially. But I am optimistic we will solve them.”

He added: “I can make one prediction with total conference: the hopes and dreams that you hold here today, and the ripples they create, will have a massive positive impact in this century and the next and beyond.”

LTU President Tarek Sobh also congratulated the graduates, saying “LTU alumni have gone on to make a remarkable difference in their industries, communities, and around the world. You too will do the same. Today marks the beginning of a journey where your dreams meet boundless possibilities. Carry forward the strength, knowledge, and values you have cultivated here.”

About Lawrence Technological University

Lawrence Technological University is one of only 13 private, technological, comprehensive doctoral universities in the United States. Located in Southfield, Mich., LTU was founded in 1932 and offers more than 100 programs through its Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Business and Information Technology, Engineering, and Health Sciences, as well as Specs @ LTU as part of its growing center for professional development. PayScale lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 11 percent of universities for alumni salaries. Forbes and The Wall Street Journal rank LTU among the nation’s top 10 percent. U.S. News and World Report list it in the top tier of best Midwest colleges. Students benefit from small class sizes and a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership activities on Lawrence Tech’s 107-acre campus include more than 60 student organizations and NAIA varsity sports.