Baccalaureate Service
Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life
Each year, on Commencement Weekend, the OCRL Office honors our graduates with an inter-religious celebration. The service is the evening before the Commencement Ceremony. The service draws on the religious diversity of our student body to speak to a special theme for that year.
The 2012 Baccalaureate Service will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 19 in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts. A special guest speaker will be chosen and the Rooke Chapel Choir and Rooke Chapel Ringers will also participate in the service.
No tickets are required, but seating in the Weis Center is limited. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors will open at 7 p.m.
Baccalaureate Blessings
Prior to each year's inter-religious Baccalaureate Service, the Chaplains' office contacts the families and loved ones of our graduates to invite them to offer inspirational words, a simple blessing, a hope, a poem, a prayer, or other artistic expressions for their graduate, or the class as a whole, on a 3" x 5" card. The cards received are strung together and hung in the windows of the Weis Center for the Performing Arts.
2011 Baccalaureate Blessings Slideshow
2010 Baccalaureate Blessings Slideshow
2009 Selected Baccalaureate Blessings Photo Gallery
Themes and speakers from recent years have been:
2011: Speaker: The Reverend Gail Bowman, Chaplain, Assistant Professor of Religion and Project Director of VisionQuest, Dillard University, New Orleans, LA
2010: Speaker: Imam Abdullah Antepli, Muslim Chaplain, Duke University
2009: Speaker: Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
2008: "Our Welfare is Bound Together"; Speaker: The Rev. Dr. Alison L. Boden, Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
2007: "We Look at Ourselves; the Kinds of People We Are"; Speaker: Chaplain Jewelnel Davis, University Chaplain, Associate Provost, and Director of the Earl Hall Center, Columbia University, NYC
2006: Senior Speakers: Kenneth Greenbaum, Gretchen Perry, Rosa Terlazzo
2005: Senior Speakers: Khalid Alghamdi, Ann K. Rosko, Kelly Jeanne Raffety, and Jeffrey Wodlinger
2004: "The Place of Privilege"; Speaker: Karen M. Morin, Associate Professor of Geography
2003: "Reflections on Hope in an Age of Cynicism"; Speaker: Dee Casteel, Associate Professor of Chemistry
2002: "Reflections on Crisis and Continuity"; Speaker: Deborah Abowitz, Associate Professor of Sociology
2001: "Reflections on Journey's Ending, Journey's Beginning"; Speaker: Gary Sojka, President, 1984-95 and Professor of Biology.
2000: "Learning, Living, Loving, and Leaving"; Speaker: Brad Tufts, long-time Bucknell administrator and coach.
1999: "Reflections on Reconcilation and Harmony"; Speaker: Maureen Murphy, retiring Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
1998: "Reflections on Community"; Speaker: Elias Abelson, retiring University General Counsel
1997: "Reflections on Compassion and Loving One's Neighbors"; Speaker: William Becker, retiring Professor of Religion
1996: "Reflections on Money, Simplicity and Priorities..."; Speaker: Joyce Bylander, Associate Dean of Students
1995: "Reflections on the Way of Peace"; Speakers: Dillonna Lewis, '95; Teresa Amott, Professor of Economics
1994: "Reflections on Wisdom and Life's Journey"; Speaker: Douglas Sturm, Professor of Political Science and Religion
