Buies Creek, N.C. – Campbell University is preparing for its first spring commencement ceremony to be held in the new John W. Pope Jr. Convocation Center. The ceremony will take place Saturday, May 9 at 2 p.m. in the Gilbert Craig Gore Arena. Approximately 600 undergraduate and 350 graduate degrees are expected to be conferred.
U.S. Representative and Campbell alumnus Bob Etheridge will deliver the general commencement address.
Etheridge, who graduated from Campbell in 1965, served in the North Carolina General Assembly and as state superintendent of schools for North Carolina. He was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1997.
The May service marks the 123rd graduation exercise to be held at Campbell since its establishment in 1887 as an academy with a charter enrollment of 16 students. Today, Campbell is comprised of the College of Arts and Sciences and five graduate and professional schools, including pharmacy, law, business, divinity and education, and four extended campus education programs at Fort Liberty, Pope Air Force Base, Camp Lejuene and Research Triangle Park in Raleigh. The university also offers a Bachelor of Science degree program at Tunku Abdul Rahman College in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
A baccalaureate service with featured speaker Dr. Dwaine Greene, vice president for Academic Affairs and provost, will be held Saturday morning at 10 a.m. in Turner Auditorium, followed by the spring commencement service for undergraduate students and graduate students from the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business and the School of Education.
Hooding and graduation ceremonies for the Divinity School, Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law and School of Pharmacy will be held Friday, May 8.