Randolph holding Commencement ceremony on May 5

Randolph College will hold its 2024 Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 5, at 9 a.m. in WildCat Stadium.

In addition to Sunday’s Commencement, other traditions and events are scheduled for the weekend.

Daisy Chain will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 4, on the steps of Martin Science Building, followed by the Phi Beta Kappa Initiation Ceremony at 1:30 p.m. in Smith Memorial Building’s Alice Ashley Jack Room and the conferring of degrees for the college’s Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) and Master of Arts in Coaching and Sport Leadership (MACSL).

The MAT ceremony is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, and MACSL at 3 p.m. in the Alice Ashley Jack Room.

Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni, a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator, will be Randolph’s 2024 Commencement speaker.

“Nikki is truly an American treasure, and one of the world’s most acclaimed poets,” said President Sue Ott Rowlands. “It was my pleasure to work with her during my time at Virginia Tech, and I am thrilled to have her come to Randolph as our Commencement speaker.”

A leader in the Black Arts Movement, Giovanni has published more than two dozen collections of poetry, essays, and anthologies, written several works of nonfiction and children’s literature, and taught all over the country, most recently at Virginia Tech, where she was named a University Distinguished Professor in 1999.

She is also the recipient of a wide range of awards, including the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the inaugural Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, the American Book Award, the Langston Hughes Award, the Virginia Governor’s Award for the Arts, the Emily Couric Leadership Award, and a Literary Excellence Award.

The Library of Virginia honored Giovanni with its Literary Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and, this fall, with its highest honor, the Patron of Letters Degree, which recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the fields of history, library science, the literary arts, or archival science.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1943, Giovanni grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and earned a history degree from Fisk University in 1968. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, not long after, and eventually used the money made from sales, along with a grant from the Harlem Arts Council, to privately publish her second volume, Black Judgement.

She has continued to explore race, gender, sexuality, and the African American family in her work. Her autobiography, Gemini, was a National Book Award finalist in 1973.

For more information about Commencement, please visit https://www.randolphcollege.edu/commencement/.