Campbell Divinity graduates
Campbell University conferred 391 degrees in divinity, law and health sciences over three graduation ceremonies on Friday, May 8.
Two more commencements will be held Saturday – the Main Campus Undergraduate & Graduate ceremony at 9 a.m. and Adult & Online Education at 3 p.m.
Write-ups on the ceremonies held Friday follow:
28 divinity graduates encouraged to live out their call with no regrets
Campbell awards 215 health sciences degrees
Campbell Law confers 148 degrees
28 divinity graduates encouraged to live out their call with no regrets
BUIES CREEK — At any given moment, thousands of people, if not millions, are giving themselves over to God’s love, said Dr. Suzii Paynter, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship who delivered the Charge to the Graduates at the Campbell University Divinity School’s spring 2015 commencement ceremony on Friday, May 8, in Turner Auditorium.
They are risking something big for something bigger. They are cultivating a beloved community. They are seeking to transform systems that hold people back. They are providing a voice for those who don’t have a voice. And they are often living “quiet, hidden lives of beauty encouraging goodness in the name of Jesus Christ,” she said, adding they have embraced the call of ministry: “to lift wide their arms to the world.”
You can find such people who embody this love at the Campbell Divinity School. That includes the 28 graduating students who received their master’s and doctoral degrees from Campbell Divinity Friday night. Specifically, 16 students received their Master of Divinity, seven their Master of Arts in Christian Ministry and five their Doctor of Ministry.
“Live out your calling,” Paynter urged the Divinity graduates. “Don’t be stingy with it. Don’t be catty. Don’t be small. Be contagious with the love of Christ and let the seed in you bear fruit. Love with the unimaginable love and live your call without regret.”
All divinity graduates are pictured below, followed by short profiles of two of the newest Master of Divinity recipients: Ann Beck and Steven Charles Chewning II.
Ann Beck: “I don’t know if my next breath will be my last.”
Ann Beck never expected to live long enough to earn her Master of Divinity when she began her theological education at Campbell in 2008.
At the time, she was on kidney dialysis. She received a dialysis every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and attended classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After her first semester, she had a kidney transplant.
“That was the beginning of some of the most horrific suffering I have been through,” said Beck, once the vice president of IT at JP Morgan before health issues.
“Suffering” — wanting to deepen her theological knowledge about the topic and better understand the connection between it and God — was what brought her to Campbell Divinity.
When she had started dialysis years ago, she formed a bible study group with other dialysis patients. While hooked up to machines, they studied Job. She saw lives changed, and she felt a call to teach and minister beyond a church’s walls.
When she visited Campbell as a prospective student, she was drawn to its inclusiveness and its mission statement to be Bible-based, Christ-centered, and ministry-focused. When she saw another student with a lung mask, “I knew this was where I was supposed to be,” she said.
Despite her health issues, she asked her professors to grade her the hardest. “My goal was to learn as much as possible,” she said. “I think in my mind I was preparing for a transition, and I wanted to be ready.”
She also wanted to help others. She tutored other divinity students; she taught classes at the Apex School of Theology; and she volunteered at the North Carolina Central Prison, ministering to inmates on death row.
She can connect with those inmates, she said, because she can look them in the eyes and honestly say: “I don’t know if my next breath will be my last.”
Just a month before graduation, Beck became very ill. Her doctor told her she wouldn’t graduate. “If you choose to graduate, you’re going back on dialysis,” the doctor said.
“I chose to graduate,” Beck said. “What else was I going to do? I had already lost everything. . . . I lost everything but gained more.”
The most significant gain? Coming to understand what life, including suffering, is all about. “Why does God allow the faithful to suffer? We grow spiritually. And what is life and the world all about? It’s about love,” said Beck, who plans to pursue a Ph.D. and continue to teach and work with inmates. “That’s what God wants — to bring the world back into fellowship with him, and that takes love.”
Steven Charles Chewning II: “This is a good place that not only prepares you for ministry but lives it out.”
Steven Charles Chewning II saw that love displayed to him by the Campbell Divinity community. About a year-and-a-half into his studies, his son, Trey, was born.
Trey — full name Steven Charles Chewning III — was born with only one ventricle, or essentially born with half a heart.
Within a few days of his birth, Trey had his first open heart surgery. He has since had a second one and a third one will occur in a year or two.
“Without the first surgery, he would have died within the first few days,” Chewning said. “They have been doing the surgeries for only the past 20 years, and they don’t know how long he will live with this type of heart defect. But we try not to think too much about it, we try to live in the present and enjoy the time with him.”
Chewning will take what he has learned from Trey, now 15 months old, and how the Divinity School students, faculty and staff have supported him — through phone calls, prayers, cards, hugs, compassion — to a full-time chaplain position he begins July 1 at UNC Hospitals. Officially, he’ll be a year-long Clinical Pastoral Education fellow.
“Being at Campbell Divinity has been life-changing,” he said. “The people here are a tight-knit community, and they care about everyone. This is a good place that not only prepares you for ministry but lives it out.”
Campbell awards 215 health sciences degrees
BUIES CREEK — Campbell University’s College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (CPHS) held its 26th graduation exercise at the John W. Pope, Jr. Convocation Center on Friday, May 8. Community Care of North Carolina (CCNC) President and CEO, L. Allen Dobson, Jr., MD, delivered the commencement address. This ceremony marked the first graduation exercises presided over by Dean Michael L. Adams and the last CPHS graduation of Campbell University President Dr. Jerry M. Wallace attending as president.
“I am excited for you to begin your careers in health care. You have demonstrated exemplary skills and I know you will lead purposeful lives through meaningful service with your education,” said Dean Adams.
“It has been my privilege to be involved with the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences and all of the programs that fall under it – pharmacy, PA, physical therapy, and nursing. We could have never planned to see the expanse, results, and blessings that would come from the enrollment of our first doctor of pharmacy student in 1986,” said President Wallace. “Your diplomas are the last ones with my name on them. Make me proud.”
In his commencement address, Dobson shared personal experiences from his journey through medicine over the last three decades. He got his start in medicine in Mount Pleasant, where he practiced medicine in local community events more often than in his office. Dobson’s current role with the CCNC allows him to assist North Carolinians through the Medicaid program. The CCNC began with the goal of ensuring all Medicaid patients had a personal physician. Now the CCNC is a statewide program of primary care “medical homes” that partners with other health care providers to coordinate patient-centered care delivery.
“Dean Adams tells me you are an exceptional class of students, bright, committed, looking forward with great enthusiasm to what’s ahead,” said Dobson. “That’s reassuring to me because I can assure you that health care needs you at this time of great change.”
Dobson encouraged the class to listen to their patients, collaborate as often as possible, and to maintain professional integrity as they enter a world of service.
“American healthcare needs heroes willing to try new things and to break down siloes that lock us into care that costs too much and does too little good,” said Dobson. “There’s a better way. I think we are getting glimpses of what it looks like, but there is much work to be done. I salute you for choosing health care as a career.”
The Class of 2015 is comprised of 182 graduates who were awarded undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. A total of 215 degrees were conferred during the ceremony, including: 102 doctor of pharmacy, 1 master of physician assistant practice, 17 master’s in clinical research, 9 master’s in pharmaceutical sciences, 7 master’s in public health, 24 bachelor’s in clinical research, 15 bachelor’s in pharmaceutical sciences, and 20 bachelor’s in general sciences. Thirty-three graduates earned multiple degrees from Campbell University simultaneously throughout their academic careers.
College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences graduates.
Campbell Law confers 148 degrees at 2015 graduation
RALEIGH — Campbell Law School conferred 148 Juris Doctor degrees at its 37th annual hooding and graduation ceremony on Friday, May 8, at Meymandi Concert Hall at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, a 1981 Campbell Law graduate, delivered the commencement address.
The Class of 2015 is comprised of 139 graduates, while the law school also awarded degrees to four August 2014 graduates and five December 2014 graduates. Forty-six different undergraduate institutions were represented in the commencement exercise.
“From this point forward your life is no longer a series of short sprints measured by semesters, exams, holidays, and summer breaks,” said Campbell Law Dean J. Rich Leonard. “From this point forward it is a marathon. There will be hills and there will be valleys. The trick is to recognize and respond to the different terrains as you come to them, so that at the end you look back with satisfaction and say ‘that was a life well lived.’”
“I really believe the best is yet to be for you and for the practice of law,” said Campbell University President Dr. Jerry M. Wallace. “I know it’s difficult, but in difficult times opportunities come. Know that we are very proud of you. Know that this old Baptist preacher president will remember you in my prayers every day of my life.”
In her commencement address Secretary Marshall reflected on her time as a Campbell Law student, and challenged the graduates to fill a leadership void present in many of today’s communities.
“We cannot thrive and flourish as a society where people disapprove of the pillars of society,” said Secretary Marshall. “Our society needs more energy and support for its basic foundations in order to stay strong. So I will ask you as young adults trained in the art of persuasion to always look for ways to get more societal buy-in from your fellow millennials.”
Professors Pat Hetrick and Dr. Stanley McQuade, who are entering retirement with the completion of the academic year, were honored for their service to the law school. Hetrick served as dean of the law school from 1987-98, and both have taught each graduating class to date.
The ceremony also marked the final law school graduation for Dr. Wallace, who will step down as university president on June 30.
Campbell Law graduates. Photo by Gregg Forwerck