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Summer 2002 | Volume 25, Number 3 | Campus
Commencement 2002
Graduates Celebrate Their Hard-Earned Diplomas — and Create an Endowment for the Future

ON JUNE 8, GRADUATING students donned caps and gowns to join regalia-clad faculty members for Seattle Pacific University's 2002 Commencement.

Held for the first time in Key Arena at Seattle Center, the Commencement ceremonies honored 1,004 graduating students: including 790 students receiving undergraduate degrees, 214 receiving master's degrees and 30 receiving doctoral degrees. Winners of the University's top academic award — the President's Citation — were bachelor's degree recipients Nick Glancy (history and mathematics) and Shannon Smythe (Christian theology and educational ministries), and doctoral degree recipient Amy Lerner (clinical psychology).

Clive Calver, president of World Relief, was this year's Commencement speaker. Headquartered in Baltimore, World Relief works in 24 nations on five continents helping victims of poverty, natural disasters and war. Speaking before a crowd of 7,000 at Key Arena, Calver delivered an address titled "How Your Life Can Touch a Nation."

The afternoon was the culminating event in a full weekend of graduation celebrations. On Friday morning, June 7, students earning master's and doctoral degrees gathered in Martin Square for the Graduate Hooding Ceremony. Master's degree students stood as their program directors and deans draped hoods over their shoulders. They then joined doctoral degree students, who received their hoods at Commencement, and the faculty to process with undergraduate students to the traditional Ivy Cutting ceremony.

Part of Seattle Pacific's graduation rites since the mid-1920s, Ivy Cutting included a quarter-mile of ivy stretched around Tiffany Loop. President Philip Eaton, Vice President for Academic Affairs Les Steele and the seven retiring SPU faculty members cut a piece of ivy for each graduate. Later that evening, students, families and faculty members gathered in Royal Brougham Pavilion for Baccalaureate and in Gwinn Commons for a reception.

Even as the graduates joined the ranks of SPU alumni, they presented their senior gift — The Class of 2002 Endowment — to the University.

"The class wanted to create something that would carry on when they left campus," says Dean Carrell, associate director of development, who worked with a committee of 40 graduating seniors on the gift's creation.

The Class of 2002 agreed to fund the endowment with an initial $10,000 over the next three years. In the hectic month before graduation, seniors had already raised $1,500. "It will be a challenge to reach $10,000, but they already have more than 10 percent of the class involved," says Carrell. "This gift greatly benefits SPU and is a tremendous vote of confidence from the Class of 2002."

— BY HOPE MCPHERSON
— PHOTO BY DANIEL SHEEHAN

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From the President
The Board of Trustees adopted a new SPU mission statement in May 2002. "I believe passionately in what we are trying to articulate here," says President Philip Eaton.

Baseball: Genesis to Numbers
Professor of History Bill Woodward is on a lecture tour throughout small-town Washington for "Inquiring Mind," a popular project of the Washington Commission for the Humanities. [Faculty]

Tiffany Bricks Project
Alumni, friends and members of the SPU community are invited to purchase and inscribe a brick from the former Tiffany Hall. Funds will directly benefit student scholarships. [Alumni]

Varsity Pair Rows to Gold
The Falcon women's varsity pair crew shell rowed to its first national championship gold medal in the Dad Vail Regatta. [Athletics]

My Response
Nick Glancy, Class of 2002, writes about September 11, the Gospel of John and J.R.R. Tolkien in this new Response department. [My Response]