commencement address

Image via RNS/Reuters/Dave Kaup

The May 13 speech at Liberty’s football stadium in Lynchburg, Va., will be Trump’s first commencement address as president, but it won’t be his first at Liberty, which describes itself as the largest Christian university in the world.

The then-presidential candidate spoke last year at the university’s Convocation, promising, “I will protect Christians,” and famously stumbling over a reference to “Two Corinthians.”

the Web Editors 5-09-2016

Screenshot via The White House / Youtube.com

President Obama delivered a commencement address on May 7 at Howard University, one of the nation’s premier historically black colleges.

In his speech, sprinkling jokes throughout, Obama encouraged the graduates to be proud of their achievement and hopeful about their future, but he also offered them some of his wisdom about how to change the world.

Tracy Simmons 4-13-2012
VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images

Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the World Economic Forum in January. VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is slated to deliver the commencement address next month to Gonzaga University’s graduating class. A group of alumni, however, are saying he isn’t welcome and are urging administrators to withdraw the invitation.

Patrick Kirby, a 1993 Gonzaga graduate, said Tutu is pro-abortion rights, has made offensive statements toward Jews and supports contraception and the ordination of gay clergy and shouldn’t be honored by a Catholic institution.

The university plans to give Tutu an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at commencement. Kirby, a local attorney, said Tutu’s visit violates the U.S. bishop’s 2004 policy, "Catholics in Political Life." The policy states that Catholic institutions should not honor those “who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”

Nadia Bolz-Weber 6-27-2011
[Editors' note: This blog post is taken from a commencement address Nadia Bolz-Weber delivered for the graduates of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Californi
Debra Dean Murphy 5-11-2011
I can appreciate how difficult it must be to craft a good commencement address. The need to avoid well-worn pieties while also offering something of the best-distilled wisdom of the ages.
We set aside a national holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because he welded an ethos of agape love onto the founding principles of the United States.
John Gehring 7-10-2009
When Pope Benedict XVI meets with President Obama in Rome today, a shy German theologian and a charismatic leader known for his international rock star appeal will find plenty to agree on despite s
John Gehring 5-23-2009
Against the backdrop of protest and spectacle that threatened to overshadow graduation at the University of Notre Dame last week, President Obama delivered a graceful commencement address that stan