Baylor to Hold Summer Commencement Exercises Aug. 16

by Paige Connell, communication specialist, (254) 710-3321

Baylor University will confer degrees on more than 500 graduates during summer commencement exercises at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 16, in the Ferrell Center on the Baylor campus.

Acting Baylor President Harold R. Cunningham will preside over the ceremony and give the traditional message to the graduates. Wesley W. Bailey, member of the Baylor Board of Regents, will bring greetings, while Dr. James W. Wiley, retired professor of curriculum and instruction, will act as bearer of the mace.

The ceremony also will include the presentation of a special award by the Baylor Alumni Association - the Abner V. McCall Humanitarian Award to Linda F. Garner, professor of nursing at Baylor's Louise Herrington School of Nursing.

The Abner V. McCall Humanitarian Award is presented annually to Baylor alumni who have exhibited a Christian response to those situations and persons around them in ways exemplified by the late Baylor President Abner V. McCall.

A 1966 graduate of the Baylor's nursing school, Garner joined the Baylor faculty in 1970 and is now a full professor. She previously was director of nursing at Bangalore Baptist Hospital in Bangalore, India, and she has served for more than 30 years as faculty sponsor of the nursing school's annual Mexico mission trip to impoverished border towns.

Garner is a leader with the Nurse Oncology Education Program (NOEP), educating nurses and physicians in current pain management techniques. She is one of the founders and current vice-chair of the Healing Hands Clinic in Dallas, a cross-cultural clinic for impoverished individuals who might otherwise not receive health care. At Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, where she also has served as chair of the deacons, Garner initiated a Parish Nursing Program for ill and homebound members, one of the first three operational parish health programs in the city.

Garner has served as both state and national president of Baptist Nursing Fellowship and as chair of both the Executive Committee and Academic Education Committee for NOEP. She is widely published in the areas of nursing care and spiritual care to patients.

Following the commencement ceremony, the Baylor Alumni Association will hold its traditional graduation celebration under the tent outside the Ferrell Center. Graduates can visit with professors and join the Alumni Association at a special rate.

On Friday, Aug. 15, the Graduate School will host a dinner for doctoral students, their spouses, department chairs and mentors at 7 p.m. in Barfield Drawing Room of the Bill Daniel Student Center.

Baylor's winter commencement exercises will be held in December. George W. Truett Theological Seminary will confer degrees on Friday, Dec. 19, while graduates from Arts and Sciences and related graduate programs, Business, Engineering and Computer Science, Education, Music, Nursing, Social Work and related graduate programs will receive their Baylor degrees on Saturday, Dec. 20.

Spring 2009 commencement ceremonies will be held on Friday, May 15, 2009, for Truett Seminary, and on Saturday, May 16, 2009, for graduates from all other colleges and schools at Baylor.

For more information, go to Baylor's commencement website at www.baylor.edu/commencement.