News & Events
ESR Celebrates the Class of 2010
The ESR community celebrated another graduating class the weekend of May 7th and 8th. This year the number of students totaled 19, including a few who will finish their degrees this coming December.
On Friday evening, May 7th, the ESR faculty, along with the graduates’ families and guests, gathered in the ESR Center dining room to honor the graduates at the Baccalaureate dinner. After enjoying dinner, faculty mentors presented tributes for each graduate present. Moments of laughter and of tears were shared.
Following the dinner everyone gathered in Stout Meetinghouse on the campus of Earlham College for a Baccalaureate worship. Several graduates participated in leading the worship they as a group had arranged. Stephanie Ford had been selected as the faculty speaker and spoke on the theme, “Ministry as Journey.” After some moments of waiting worship, the graduates formed a circle facing outwards. The faculty processed to encircle them while singing a hymn of blessing. Jay Marshall gave a blessing to the gradates on behalf of the faculty. The closing hymn was a hymn of dedication, “Will You Come and Follow Me?” written by John L. Bell and Graham Maule:
“Lord your summons echoes true
when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
and never be the same.
In Your company I’ll go
where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
in you and you in me.”
On Saturday afternoon, May 8th, ESR joined the entire Earlham community to celebrate commencement. It was a blustery day with only a few moments of sunshine. ESR was well-represented in the ceremony. Ben Lewis, an ESR Access student and pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church in Knoxville, TN, delivered a moving invocation. On behalf of ESR, Erin McDougall welcomed the large crowd. As each one of the names of ESR graduates were read by the dean, Jay Marshall, they came across the stage, where Tim Seid and David Johns hooded the graduates and they received their diploma from Earlham’s president, Douglas Bennett.
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| Class of 2010 |
Graduates pictured: (from left to right)
Jiae Paik, Sue Axtell, Ellen Weiss Carvill-Ziemer, Katie Henninger, Summer Cushman, Lauren Baumann, Julia Pantoga, Adrienne Lowe, Erin McDougall, Carrie Drees, Benjamin Lewis, Benjamin Pressley, Brett Stewart, and David Zier.
Those not pictured:
Jo Aaron
Holly Cedar (December 2010)
Rena Holcomb (December 2010)
Amanda Kelly (December 2010)
Bruce Heckman (December 2010)
Congratulations to all of our graduates!
A video of Earlham’s commencement can be viewed online through July at:
