| On
Saturday, May 7 at 10:30 a.m., Ferrum College’s 150 men and women will
graduate Ferrum College in a commencement ceremony led by Dr. Jennifer
L. Braaten, who is presiding over her third graduation as Ferrum’s 10th
president. Commencement 2005 will take place on the front lawn. Baccalaureate
will be held in Vaughn Chapel on Friday, May 6, at 7:30 p.m.
Virginia State Senator John W. Warner
will deliver the commencement keynote address. Warner, first elected
to the Senate in 1978, served first as Undersecretary, then as Secretary
of the Navy, leading the Navy and the Marine Corps through the second
half of the Vietnam conflict. Now serving in his twenty-sixth year in
the Senate, Warner chairs the influential Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Senator also serves on the Select Committee on Intelligence, the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the Environment
and Public Works Committee. A high-resolution photo of Senator Warner
is available at: http://www.ferrum.edu/news/2005Spring/warner.jpg.
Student awards to be announced at the
event include the James T. Catlin, Jr., Citizenship Award, the Arthur
S. Owens Leadership Award, and the Senior Academic Excellence Award.
The Exemplary Faculty Award and the Cheatham Fellowship will be given
to faculty and the Beckham Medallion, Ferrum’s highest alumni honor,
will also be presented.
Following the event, graduates will process
through two rows of faculty and staff, who will wish them well on their
continuing journey. This tradition parallels the students’ experience
as freshman, when they were welcomed in the same fashion.
The Ferrum College campus will be abuzz
with the landmark construction and renovation projects that began this
year. Work on the historical icon Beckham Hall, the Franklin Hall student
center (to include a new alumni conference center) and a new apartment-style
dorm in the center of campus, will be evident just down campus from
the Commencement exercises. These ambitious construction projects will
result in new and improved facilities across campus in the first such
comprehensive enhancement of multiple areas of campus since the 1960’s.
Ferrum College is a four-year,
private, co-educational, liberal arts college affiliated with the United
Methodist Church. Ferrum offers a choice of nationally recognized bachelor’s
degree programs at a cost well below the national average for private
colleges. For more information on Ferrum, visit www.ferrum.edu. |
