Approximately 500 Eligible to Walk in Commencement May 9

Guilford will confer degrees upon approximately 340 graduates completing degree requirements in spring semester during its 172nd Commencement exercises Saturday, May 9. The program will take place in the campus quadrangle beginning at 9:30 a.m. In the event of rain, the ceremony will be in Ragan-Brown Field House. 

The ceremony will also include students who completed degree requirements during the summer and fall semesters, for a total of more than 500 graduates since last year's commencement.  

President Kent Chabotar will preside over his seventh commencement and give the charge to the graduates. Invited speaker Charlotte Roberts and student speakers Saron Smith-Hardin ’09 and Michael L. Raper ’09 will each deliver remarks.  

Roberts, a Guilford trustee since 1997, is a popular speaker and writer on executive leadership and organizational development. She is the president of Blue Fire Partners, Inc., and is the co-author of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization, a practical guidebook used for creating an enduring competitive advantage, and The Dance of Change: The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations. 

Smith-Hardin, from Milford, Conn., has a double-major in Spanish and Latin American studies and a minor in peace and conflict studies. A four-year Bonner Scholar, she performed hundreds of hours of community service at the Servant Center homeless shelter and Glenwood Library, where she was project coordinator of the ESL tutoring program last year.  

Raper will earn a B.A. in psychology with a concentration in human resource management. He has been employed at the Center for Creative Leadership, where he will continue to work while pursuing a graduate degree in social psychology. Raper lives in Greensboro with his wife and 13-year-old daughter.  

Also participating in the program are Max Carter, director of Friends Center and campus ministry coordinator; Steve Shapiro, associate academic dean and associate professor of physics; and Ann M. Burton ’74, president of the Alumni Association Board of Directors.

The ceremony will also include music by the Guilford Jazz Quartet and the college choir, directed by Wendy Looker. Bagpipers Dave Thomas and Peter Kent will perform a piece in tribute to Ruffin Hobbs ’75, who played bagpipes at Commencement for many years until his death last summer.  

The college will hold a baccalaureate service for graduates, their families and friends Friday, May 8, at 6 p.m. in Dana Auditorium.

May 7, 2009