MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College will confer degrees on 192 students graduating during the sesquicentennial year commencement on Saturday, May 31, at 1:30 p.m. in the Richard and Norma Small Multi-Sport Center. Each graduate will wear a 2-inch-wide medallion featuring the college’s sesquicentennial logo and hung from a ribbon of purple and white, the school colors.
Kerry Bostwick, assistant professor of education, will be the faculty speaker. Her address is titled “It’s My Way … Or My Other Way.” Alison Carley of Fargo, N.D., who is graduating with a bachelor of special studies with a major in English and minors in women’s studies and psychology, will deliver the senior address, “Ends on a Hopeful Note.”
Saturday events begin at 9 a.m. with a baccalaureate service in King Chapel. The Rev. Catherine Quehl-Engel, college chaplain, will deliver the sermon. Seniors’ words of thanksgiving for family, friends and mentors will be read at the service.
Cornell’s Delta of Iowa chapter of Phi Beta Kappa will hold a reception at 10:30 a.m. in Cole Library. Among more than 3,600 colleges and universities in the United States, Cornell is one of only 262 with an active chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest and most widely respected academic honorary society in the United States.
After a buffet luncheon from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Cornell seniors, faculty and administrators will assemble at 12:45 p.m. in the Multi-Sport Center for the traditional academic procession that begins the 1:30 p.m. commencement ceremony. The public is invited.