Baccalaureate

May 16, 4-5 p.m.
Reception to follow in Batte Rotunda

ba-kuh-LAHR-ee-uht

It’s a big word for a big occasion! Baccalaureate is the religious companion to Commencement, so it’s a ceremony designed to help graduates reflect on this transitional moment – from college to whatever’s next – in the light of faith. There’s prayer and scripture and a little preaching and a lot of music and students telling stories...in fact, almost the whole thing’s led by Wingate students! 

Unlike the big, splashy Commencement – with the “Pomp and Circumstance,” the decorative mortarboards, the photo ops, the long procession of students across the stage – Baccalaureate offers a moment to suspend the fanfare and to look back along the road that lies behind, peer into the path ahead, and entrust all the complexity of this present moment to the love of the One who made us. It’s also an opportunity for graduates to honor the faculty and staff they’ve nominated for the Mentor Medallion.