HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM, May 6, 2024) – For a Class of 2024 that has endured more than its share of challenges, having ideal weather conditions for Sunday’s 159th Hope College Commencement Exercise was perhaps a fitting reward for its perseverance.
More than 680 graduating seniors were on hand at Ray and Sue Smith Stadium to hear from the featured speaker, the Reverend Shomari Tate, chaplain of discipleship at the Holland school, who talked about Christ’s final words on the cross – “It is finished” – and how the new scholars should step into the world of adversity with duty and purpose.
President Matthew Scogin admitted that this graduating class is something special for rising above all of the circumstances it has gone through.
Dr. Chad Carlson, professor of kinesiology and director of general education, was named by the graduating class as the Hope Outstanding Professor Educator award winner, symbolic of epitomizing the best qualities of the Hope College educator.
Before the graduation ceremony, Dr. Vicki-Lynn Holmes, associate professor of mathematics and education who is retiring after 16 years at the school, was the featured speaker at two Baccalaureate services in Dimnent Memorial Chapel. Her remarks, entitled “I’ve got this … No you don’t,” featured God’s centrality in the graduates’ lives, in which they can find strength and confidence.
Unlike student unrest seen at other institutions of higher education over the past several weeks, centering on the Israeli-Hamas conflict, there were no such outbursts seen on the Hope College campus on Sunday.
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