Sewanee Graduation Events Begin Today

The University of the South’s 2014–15 academic year comes to a close today through Sunday, May 8–10, with three ceremonies marking graduation weekend at Sewanee. Commencement and Baccalaureate ceremonies will be held for students from the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Theology and the School of Letters.

Commencement for conferring of degrees for the 35 graduates of the School of Theology will be in All Saints’ Chapel on Friday, May 8.

The Baccalaureate service will be at 10 a.m., Saturday, May 9, in All Saints’ Chapel; it will also be shown on closed-circuit TV in Guerry Auditorium. Robert M. Gates, former secretary of defense and former president of Texas A&M University, will give the address. 

Commencement ceremonies for the College and the School of Letters will be at 10 a.m., Sunday, May 10, in All Saints’ Chapel. Tickets are required for seating in All Saints’ Chapel and McClurg Hall; tickets are not required to watch the ceremonies on closed-circuit TV in Guerry Auditorium. 

Approximately 350 students are expected to graduate from the College, and nine from the School of Letters. A luncheon honoring the Class of 2015 graduates will follow. 

All three services will be streamed live on the University’s website for those unable to attend.

Honorary degrees will be presented to the Rt. Rev. Robert Skirving, bishop of the Diocese of East Carolina, and to the Most Rev. Thabo Cecil Makgoba, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, who will also preach during the May 8 School of Theology Commencement service.

In addition to Gates, Mary Moore Dwyer, president and CEO of Institute for the International Education of Students; F. Robertson Hershey, headmaster of Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va.; and Jefferson Allen McMahan, C’76, White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford, will receive honorary degrees during the May 9 Baccalaureate ceremony. 

International Development Leader to Give Founders' Day Address

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairman of the world’s largest development organization, will deliver the Founders’ Day address and receive an honorary doctor of civil law during the Oct. 17 Founders’ Day Convocation at the University of the South. The Founders’ Day ceremony, at noon in All Saints’ Chapel, will include the conferral of two additional honorary degrees and the induction of new members into the Order of Gownsmen.

The University will confer upon the Rt. Rev. Rayford High, provisional bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, an honorary doctor of divinity; U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Wright will receive an honorary doctor of letters.

Undergraduate students will join the Order of Gownsmen, Sewanee’s academic honor society body responsible for maintaining the spirit, traditions and ideals of the University. Because the Convocation falls at the beginning of Family Weekend, many parents will be on campus to see the “gowning.”

Leading up to the Convocation, Abed will give a public talk Oct. 15, and Wright will read from his work Oct.16. [See related story on page 6.]

Sir Abed is the founder and chairperson of BRAC. Formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, BRAC supports lasting change by giving the poor the tools to lift themselves out of poverty. Under Sir Abed’s leadership, BRAC grew in the span of four decades to become the largest development organization in the world. Educated at both Dhaka and Glasgow universities, Sir Abed was a senior executive when the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War changed his life. He left his job and devoted himself to Bangladesh’s war of independence. After the war, Sir Abed returned to the newly independent Bangladesh, and established BRAC to serve refugees returning to Bangladesh. BRAC now operates in 12 countries, reaching more than 135 million people through its development interventions, which range from primary education, essential healthcare, agricultural support, human rights and legal services to microfinance and enterprise development. 

Sir Abed has been honored with numerous national and international awards for his achievements. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George by the British Crown. In 2014, he was included in Fortune’s list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.

The Rt. Rev. Rayford High Jr., a member of Sewanee’s class of 1963, has served as the provisional bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth since November 2012. Prior to serving as provisional bishop, he was the retired bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, where he served for eight years. He was formerly canon for pastoral ministries and the diocesan liaison to St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System. As suffragan bishop, he oversaw 44 congregations in the Northeast, Northwest and Southeast Convocations and managed the pastoral care of clergy and their families as well as renewal and prison ministries. He served in parishes for 32 years during his early ministry. He received a B.A. from the University of the South and obtained his M.Div. from Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. He was elected to represent the diocese as a deputy at General Convention on eight occasions and was named Humanitarian of the Year in 1997 by the Waco Conference of Christians and Jews.

Charles Wright was recently named by the Library of Congress Poet Laureate of the United States. Wright was born in Pickwick Dam, Tenn., and educated at Davidson College. He began to read and write poetry while stationed in Italy during four years of military service. A degree at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop followed, along with a Fulbright fellowship in Italy. His third collection of poems, “Country Music: Selected Early Poems,” received a National Book Award. Wright’s influences range from the work of Ezra Pound and Italian modernist Eugenio Montale to that of ancient Chinese poets, along with his education at Episcopal boarding schools. In 2011, he told PBS that the content of all of his poems, no matter their precise subject, is “language, landscape and the idea of God.” He is the author of more than 20 books of poetry and two volumes of criticism. His poetry has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin International Poetry Prize (Scar Tissue), the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Black Zodiac) and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets (Chickamauga). Wright had a distinguished career at the University of Virginia as the Souder Family Professor of English. His many honors include the 2013 Bollingen Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit Medal and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

Sewanee’s Academic Year Comes to a Close

The University of the South’s 2013–14 academic year comes to a close May 9, 10 and 11 with three ceremonies marking graduation weekend at Sewanee. Commencement and Baccalaureate ceremonies will be held for students from the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Theology and School of Letters.

Commencement for conferring of degrees for 2014 graduates of the School of Theology will be at 10 a.m., Friday, May 9, in All Saints’ Chapel. Honorary degrees will be presented to the Rt. Rev. Mark Allen Bourlakas, the Most Rev. David Chillingworth and David J. Hurd Jr. during the School of Theology Commencement.

The Baccalaureate Service will be at 10 a.m., Saturday, May 10, in All Saints’ Chapel, and will also be shown on closed-circuit television in Guerry Auditorium. Attorney and philanthropist Florence Davis will give the Baccalaureate address.

Commencement ceremonies for the College and School of Letters will be at 10 a.m. Sunday, May 11. Tickets are required for College commencement seating in All Saints’ Chapel and McClurg Hall; however, the ceremony will also be shown on closed-circuit television in Guerry Auditorium (no ticket required). Approximately 350 students are expected to graduate from the College.

Wayne W. Anderson, Florence A. Davis, Anthony C. Gooch, C’59 and Jonathan Green will receive honorary degrees during the May 10 Baccalaureate ceremony.

More information about the honorary degree recipients follows:

Wayne W. Anderson is the founding president of the Associated Colleges of the South, serving in that role since the consortium began in 1991. Sixteen national liberal arts colleges and universities—including Sewanee—across 12 southern states make up the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS). 

Anderson’s leadership is often cited as a key component of the consortium’s success in serving its 30,000 students and 3,000 faculty members, strengthening academic programs and broadening opportunities for students. Anderson was formerly president of Maryville College, Illinois Wesleyan University and the Alabama Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

Florence A. Davis is president of the board of directors of the Starr Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the U.S. and among the top sponsors of financial aid at Sewanee, having contributed more than $1.8 million. 

A graduate of Wellesley College and New York University School of Law, Davis began her career in private practice and then served in a number of positions at Morgan Stanley. She was vice president and general counsel of AIG. She is a trustee of New York University and the NYU School of Law; a director of the International Rescue Committee, the Institute for Judicial Administration and the Eisenhower Fellowships, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Anthony C. “Tony” Gooch, C’59, is a retired attorney who practiced for more than 40 years at international law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. 

He established and supports the Klein Family Scholarships, which were conceived of by his late wife, Linda B. Klein, and provide full financial support for talented Hungarian students to study at Sewanee. The Institute for International Education awarded Gooch the 2012 Europe Award for Excellence. He has served Sewanee as a regent, a member of the University Board of Trustees and as a member of the executive board of the Associated Alumni. He was the 2013 recipient of the Crawford Alumni Service Award.

Jonathan Green is an internationally acclaimed artist who is considered one of the most important painters of the Southern experience. Green’s best-known approach to painting may be termed “narrative realism.” His work reflects the everyday life of African-Americans in the low-country, capturing and recording his life experiences and the rich cultural heritage of the Gullah community. 

Green is a frequent speaker on the role of the artist in preserving culture and our places in history. 

His paintings can be found in major museum and cultural collections, and he has received numerous awards for both his work and his civic contributions.

Honorary Degrees and Academic Gowns Awarded at Founders’ Day Convocation

Justice Robert L. Brown, C’63, former associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court, will deliver the Founders’ Day address and receive an honorary Doctor of Civil Law during the Founders’ Day Convocation today (Friday), Oct. 11. The ceremony, which begins at noon in All Saints’ Chapel, will include the conferral of two additional honorary degrees and the induction of new members into the Order of Gownsmen.

Approximately 240 undergraduate students will join the Order of Gownsmen, Sewanee’s academic honor society responsible for maintaining the spirit, traditions and ideals of the University. Because the Convocation falls at the beginning of Family Weekend, many parents will be on campus to see the “gowning.”

Brown served as associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court for more than 20 years before stepping down in 2012. Among Brown’s significant opinions during his time on the bench was one striking down term limits for U.S. senators and representatives, which was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, and another holding Arkansas’ method of public school funding unconstitutional. Brown’s 2010 book, “Defining Moments: Historic Decisions by Arkansas Governors from McMath through Huckabee,” has been praised for its unusual combination of historical research and personal familiarity. He received Sewanee’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2006 and was the first recipient, in 2010, of the Arkansas Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program Justice Robert L. Brown Community Support Award.

Honorary degrees will be awarded during this Convocation to three people whose life work will have substantial and lasting effects, and two of whom are already Sewanee alumni. The University will confer upon Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, and upon the Rev. Becca Stevens, Episcopal chaplain at Vanderbilt University and founder of Magdalene and Thistle Farms, an honorary Doctor of Divinity.

Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. is a renowned literary critic, educator, scholar, writer and editor. His work at Harvard also includes directorship of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is editor-in-chief of TheRoot.com, a daily online magazine focusing on issues of interest to the African-American community and written from an African-American perspective. His books have won the 1989 American Book Award and a 2010 NAACP Image Award. He is the recipient of a 1981 MacArthur Foundation Genius Award and the 2008 Ralph Lowell Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s highest award.

The Rev. Becca Stevens, C’85, has been the chaplain at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel at Vanderbilt University since 1995. In 1997 she founded Magdalene, a residential program serving women survivors of violence, prostitution and addiction. In 2001 she began Thistle Farms, a bath and body care company run by the women of Magdalene. She is the author of nine books and opened her latest venture, the Thistle Stop Café, in June. Thistle Farms has helped more than 20 cities across the country develop similar programs. Stevens has been featured on ABC, NPR, PBS and CNN; was named by the White House as one of 15 Champions of Change; was named Nashville’s 2011 Social Entrepreneur of the Year; and was the youngest recipient of Sewanee’s Distinguished Alumnus award. She will return to campus next month as the Babson Center for Global Commerce’s Humphreys Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

Marilynne Robinson Reading on Thursday

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson will give a reading from her new collection of essays, “When I Was a Child I Read Books,” at 4 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 17, in Gailor Auditorium. The public is welcome, and a book signing will follow.

Robinson is on the Sewanee campus to give the Convocation address and receive an honorary degree on Friday, Jan. 18. During her visit, she will also meet with students and faculty members from the College and the School of Theology.

She is a professor of creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of three highly acclaimed novels: “Housekeeping” (1980), “Gilead” (2004) and “Home” (2008). Robinson has served as writer-in-residence and visiting professor at many colleges and universities, including the University of Kent in England and Amherst College. Her second book, “Mother Country: Britain, The Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution,” evolved from an essay that she wrote for Harper’s Review and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent collection of essays, “When I Was a Child I Read Books” was published last March. “Housekeeping” was a finalist for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, “Gilead” was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer and “Home” received the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Spring Opening Convocation on Jan. 18

Opening Convocation for the Easter semester at the University will be at noon, Friday, Jan. 18, in All Saints’ Chapel. Honorary degrees will be presented and new members will be inducted into the Order of Gownsmen. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson will give the Convocation address and will receive an honorary degree. Stan Brock, the Rt. Rev. Jacob W. Owensby and the Rt. Rev. John McKee Sloan will also receive honorary degrees during the Convocation. Robinson will also have a reading on Thursday, Jan. 17 [see accompanying story about Robinson].

Stan Brock is the founder and president of Remote Area Medical, Inc. (RAM), a corps of volunteers providing free medical, visual, dental, and veterinary care to uninsured and under-insured individuals in the U.S. and the developing world. An Englishman by birth, Brock spent 15 years with the Wapishana Indians in the Central Amazon Basin, becoming general manager of the world’s largest tropical cattle ranch. He is a bush pilot and former star of the popular television program “Wild Kingdom.” Brock’s experiences living and working in the Amazon basin, witnessing the suffering of those without access to medical services, inspired him to create RAM in 1985. RAM clinics are held in the U.S. and worldwide, and have inspired more than 70,000 volunteers to provide care to more than a half million people. A clinic at Sewanee last May served more than 500 area residents.

The Rt. Rev. Jacob W. Owensby, Ph.D., T’97, was ordained on July 21 as the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. Owensby has served as dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Western Louisiana diocese, since January 2009. He previously served as rector of Emmanuel Church, Webster Groves, Mo.; as rector of St. Stephen’s Church, Huntsville, Ala.; and as assistant rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Fla. He holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from Emory University, and a master of divinity degree from the School of Theology at the University of the South. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1997.

 The Rt. Rev. John McKee Sloan, T’81, currently serves as bishop of the Diocese of Alabama. A native of Vicksburg, Miss., Sloan received his bachelor of science degree in sociology from Mississippi State University in 1976 and his master of divinity degree from the School of Theology at the University of the South in 1981. Sloan’s previous service to the Church includes calls to parishes in Mississippi and Alabama as curate, chaplain and rector. He is an active participant in programs that support people with mental and physical disabilities. In the national Church, he is a member of the standing commission for liturgy and music. Sloan and his wife, Tina Brown Sloan, have two children, McKee, C’11, and Mary Nell, a freshman at the University of Montevallo.

McConnachie to Give Founders’ Day Address

Jenny McConnachie, one of the longest-serving Episcopal missionaries in the church’s history, will deliver the Founders’ Day address and receive an honorary Doctor of Canon Law during the Oct. 9 Convocation at the University. The ceremony, held at 12:30 p.m. in All Saints’ Chapel, will include the conferral of two additional honorary degrees, the installation of the provost of the university and the induction of new members into the Order of Gownsmen.

McConnachie, a nurse, met her husband, Chris, when they both worked at hospitals in London. Their careers took them from London to Canada, to South Africa and to North Carolina, where they settled and began raising a family. In 1981, the McConnachie family—including five children—returned to South Africa for what became a lasting commitment. They found an overwhelming demand for healthcare and other services, and in response started the African Medical Mission with support from U.S. churches. McConnachie launched a medical clinic for people living on the local garbage dump. That program, the Itipini Community Project, now includes a preschool, after-school and nutrition programs and other services, providing care to 3,000 people.

Honorary degrees awarded during this Convocation have a theme of service to the broad Episcopal Church. The University will confer upon Christopher Bryan, C. K. Benedict Professor of New Testament at Sewanee’s School of Theology, an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree, and upon W. Brown Patterson, C’52, Francis S. Houghteling Professor of History emeritus, an honorary Doctor of Letters.

A native of London, Bryan attended Wadham College, Oxford, graduating in the Honour Schools of both Theology and English Language and Literature, and coming under the influence of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Before moving to Sewanee in 1983, he taught New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, and was associate director of the Center for Continuing Education. Here, Bryan has held the positions of professor of New Testament, interim chaplain, priest associate, and editor of the Sewanee Theological Review. His scholarly books cover topics including the Gospel of Mark, St. Paul’s letter to the