Hillsdale College Celebrates Spring Convocation
Provost David Whalen provides remarks; faculty and students honored for teaching and academic excellence
Hillsdale, Mich.— On Thursday, April 11, Hillsdale College hosted its annual Spring Convocation at College Baptist Church, gathering the college community together to honor academic tradition and celebrate the achievements of students and faculty.
Hillsdale College Provost David Whalen gave opening remarks and led the graduating class of 2019 officers in the traditional passing of the gavel to the class of 2020. He then presented an address, “On Tree Bark, Terror, and Other Trifles.”
“Education has the character, oddly, of a byproduct resulting from a thousand difficult or befuddling studies, inquiries, conversations, and battles, many seemingly unrelated to each other,” Whalen said. “It awakens us to reality in a way that seems indirect, sideways—in an elaborate dance where the object, that is truth, is not transmitted or tackled, but wooed and won.”
The service featured music performed by the Hillsdale College Chamber Choir and the presenting of the Emily Daugherty Award for Teaching Excellence to Chairman and Professor of History Mark Kalthoff.
Whalen announced the all-school GPA for the spring 2019 semester, 3.320, and the winners of the school’s scholarship cups. Women’s fraternity Pi Beta Phi earned the sorority scholarship cup with a GPA of 3.523, and men’s fraternity Sigma Chi earned the fraternity scholarship cup with a GPA of 3.257. Additionally, the top 11 students in the senior class were recognized for their academic excellence. They are, in alphabetical order: Nicole Ault, Catherine Bodnar, Marina Bostelman, Kathryn Duhadway, Ellen Friesen, Hope Jonker, Rebecca Kaiser, Daniel Maisonville, Samuel Roberts, Jessica Skoudis, and Gill West.