Grace College And Seminary Commencement Ceremony Is Saturday
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WINONA LAKE – As the 2014-2015 school year draws to a close, Grace College and Seminary will hold a commencement ceremony Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Ronald and Barbara Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center. The ceremony will include an invocation by Rev. Jeffrey A. Patton, lead pastor at the Grace Brethren Church in Norwalk, Calif.; an institutional welcome by William J. Katip, president at Grace College; and a benediction by John F. Carini, a physician in Lancaster, Pa. A brass ensemble, directed by Eric Criss, will perform at the commencement services, as well as a the Lancer Chorus, directed by Thomas Hall. This year, Grace asked the senior class to select a faculty member to appear as a special guest speaker during the commencement ceremonies. The students selected Roger Stichter, accounting and finance professor at Grace. For the 2015 commencement, Katip chose Dr. Paulette Sauders, the faculty member who has served Grace the longest, to carry the ceremonial mace. Carrying the mace is an honor and is traditionally borne by someone who has been singled out for tribute, according to a press release from Grace College. During the ceremony, Grace will honor Sauders for 50 years of service at Grace as a professor of English and journalism. Only three others have reached this esteemed milestone at Grace, but Sauders is the first faculty member to accomplish this while still actively teaching full-time. In addition to serving as a faculty member in the Languages, Literature and Communication Department, Sauders taught in the Grace prison program for 16 years and served as a leader for Women of Grace for 40 years. Sauders has been the chair of the department since 2003 and for four decades has served as an advisor to the school newspaper, “The Sounding Board.”
