Area colleges line up commencement speakers

While Liberty University’s commencement on May 9 is the earliest of major colleges in the area this year, the school is the last to announce a speaker.

Liberty Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said Monday that he is still “trying to work out the arrangements” with a prospective speaker.

The area’s other colleges will bring in a diverse pool of commencement speakers this spring.

They include a former state senator, an award-winning journalist, the executive director of a 222-acre estate, the creator of an artistic nonprofit organization and a woman who has counseled thousands of students on career goals.

This year, Liberty’s commencement falls a week earlier than those at Lynchburg College, Randolph College and Sweet Briar College, which Falwell said may alleviate problems in booking hotels. When LU’s graduation falls on the same weekend as the others, as it did last year, hotels in and around Lynchburg fill to capacity months in advance.

Virginia University of Lynchburg’s commencement on May 2 will kick off the two-week stretch of local college graduations.

For VUL, former state Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III will speak before 81 graduates.

Sweet Briar College will host award-winning journalist Margaret Warner at its 100th commencement on May 16.

Warner is one of five senior correspondents on the Public Broadcasting System’s nightly news program, “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” As the lead correspondent for the show’s overseas reporting unit, her job has taken her recently to Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, France, Pakistan, Kenya, China and the United Kingdom, according to a Sweet Briar news release.

On the same day, Lynchburg College will graduate an estimated 430 undergraduate and 100 graduate students.

Randi Alper Pupkin, a 1984 graduate of LC, will give the commencement address.

Pupkin established Art with a Heart, a nonprofit organization that provides innovative visual arts classes to disadvantaged communities in and around her native city of Baltimore. The program now serves more than 8,000 children, adolescents and adults in shelters, community centers, group homes, alternative schools and senior facilities.

At Randolph College, 1976 alumna Grace Gary will speak on May 17 to about 150 graduates, possibly including the first male graduate since the college’s transition from the former Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

Gary is the executive director of Nemours Mansion and Gardens in Wilmington, Del., where she is overseeing a 10-year, total restoration of the 222-acre estate.

Central Virginia Community College will celebrate the achievements of alumna Muriel Mickles, who has served at the school for more than 36 years.

As the outstanding alumnus of the year, she is set to address the school’s roughly 374 graduates.

A graduate of Campbell County High School in Rustburg, Mickles started as a student at CVCC when she was 18, was soon hired as a clerk in the records office, and has worked her way up to her current position as dean of humanities and social sciences.

Local Graduation Ceremonies

Central Virginia Community College:
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, May 14
Where: The Vines Center at Liberty University
Speaker: Alumna Muriel Mickles
Number of graduates: About 374, as of Monday

Liberty University
When: 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 9
Where: Williams Stadium
Speaker: Unannounced
Number of graduates: Estimated at about 4,750, including resident and distance-learning students.

Lynchburg College
When: 10 a.m. Saturday, May 16
Where: The college’s Dell
Speaker: Alumna Randi Alper Pupkin
Number of graduates: About 430 undergraduate students and 100 graduate students

Sweet Briar College
When: 10 a.m. Saturday, May 16
Where: The college’s Quad
Speaker: Margaret Warner
Number of graduates: About 138 undergraduate students and 13 graduate

Randolph College
When: 10 a.m. Sunday, May 17
Where: The college’s Dell
Speaker: Alumna Grace Gary
Number of graduates: About 150

Virginia University of Lynchburg
When: 11 a.m. Saturday, May 2
Where: The college’s Humbles Hall Auditorium
Speaker: Former state Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III
Number of graduates: 81