Graduation serves as a life-changing experience and marks both a beginning and end. In the Projections of Education Statistics to 2017 report by the National Center for Educations Statistics, colleges and universities will confer approximately 2,667,000 bachelor’s, master’s, doctor’s and first-professional degrees on graduates. The Atlanta University Center will contribute more than 1,700 to that number. In May, the four AUC Consortium institutions will mark their commencement exercises with speakers from the nation’s most notable business, civic and political landscapes. It is the time when administrators, families and friends all come together for the big weekends of caps, gowns and tassels. It is the time to pray, celebrate honorary degree recipients, commencement speakers, and the all-important graduate.
Baccalaureate Services
Beginning Saturday, May 20, 2017, at 9 a.m., Spelman College will host Andrea C. White, Ph.D., associate professor of theology and culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York as its baccalaureate speaker; on the same day at 3 p.m., Morehouse College will host the Rev. Dr. Otis J. Moss Jr., ’56, pastor emeritus of Mt. Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Chicago and the Rev. Dr. Otis J. Moss III, ’92, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Chicago. Clark Atlanta University will hold its baccalaureate services Sunday, May 21 at 10 a.m. with the Rev. Olu Brown, senior pastor of Atlanta’s Impact Church.
Commencement Exercises
Morehouse School of Medicine kicks off its 33rd commencement exercises Saturday, May 20 at 9 a.m. with the indomitable civil rights icon and 5th District U.S. Rep. John Lewis. He will also receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters.
At 8 a.m., Sunday, May 21 on Morehouse College’s Century Campus, CNN political correspondent and former White House policy adviser to President Barack Obama Van Jones will deliver the college’s 133rd commencement address. For more information, visit Morehouse.
Lawyer, businesswoman and civic leader Valerie Jarrett will do the honors at the 130th commencement exercises for Spelman College. The longest-serving senior adviser to President Barack Obama will deliver her address Sunday, May 21 at 3 p.m. at the Georgia International Convention enter. For more information, visit Spelman.
After the May weekend of ceremonies, Clark Atlanta University will hold its 2017 commencement exercises with entrepreneur William Pickard, Ph.D. Chairman of the Global Automotive Alliance, co-managing partner of the MGM Grand Detroit Casino, CEO of the Bearwood Management Co., and co-owner of five African-American news publications, Pickard will deliver the commencement address Monday, May 22 at 8 a.m. in Panther Stadium.
