WINONA LAKE  — Grace College and Seminary’s annual commencement ceremony will take place at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 7, in the Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center. Commencement will honor 603 graduates, including some August and December graduates. The largest group of graduates ever to walk in the Grace College and Seminary commencement is expected on Saturday with 464 graduates participating.

Each year, Grace’s senior class elects a faculty member to deliver the commencement address. This year, Mike Yocum was chosen. Yocum is associate professor of communication and the program director of the communication department; he also directs the theater program at Grace.
The invocation will be given by Dr. Larry D. Edwards, senior pastor of Grace Brethren Church of West Kittanning, Pa. Dr. William J. Katip, president of Grace College, will lead the institutional welcome, followed by a hymn “A Mighty Fortress.”
Two students will speak: Student Body President Evan Kilgore will give the student greeting while Daniel J. Rosenberg, Jr., representing the seminary and graduate student body, will give the family recognition.
Dr. John R. Lillis, executive vice president of academic affairs, Dr. James E. Swanson, vice president of academic and student affairs, and Dr. Jeffrey A. Gill, vice president and dean of seminary and school of ministry studies, will present honors recognitions. Lillis, Gill, and Steven T. Carlson, registrar, will present the graduates and Dr. Katip will confer the degrees.
Commencement will conclude with a hymn, “Grace Greater than our Sin” and a benediction by Rev. Wayne G. Kurtycz, pastor of Northridge Church in Brighton, Mich., followed by the recessional.
The brass ensemble will be conducted by Martin Carey-Becker. The Lancer Chorus will be directed by Thomas C. Hall.
The 2016 Grace College commencement ceremony marks the end of the first year of the fully-instituted Measure of Grace initiative to make quality, Christian higher education available to as many students as possible. In the fall of 2015, Grace reduced the total cost of undergraduate tuition by nine percent and promised to reduce tuition an additional $500 each consecutive year an undergraduate student returns to Grace.

In addition to the tuition reduction, Measure of Grace provides free textbook rentals for the length of undergraduate studies, the option to fast-track a bachelor’s degree in a three-year accelerated program at no additional cost and the option to blend a bachelor’s and master’s degree into four years while maintaining undergraduate financial aid.

Each of these five cost-savings measures are girded with Grace’s unchanging mission: to apply biblical values in strengthening character, sharpening competence and preparing students for service.
For more information about commencement, call the Grace College Registrar’s Office at (574) 372-5100, ext. 6414 or email [email protected].