Scholar Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. inspires graduates at 135th Berea College Commencement

Taking part in the ceremonies were 245 graduating seniors and 23 students who expected to complete degree requirements this summer.  Among them was 79 year old Billy Parker Cass, who returned after 42 years to finish the one course he needed for his B.S. in Technology and Industrial Arts.

Gates and education, civil rights and philanthropy leader Ms. Jean E. Fairfax, also were awarded the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters from the College.

Annual awards to outstanding graduates and faculty also were presented.  The Hilda Welch Wood Award for outstanding achievement by a female in this year’s graduating class went to Ni Ji of Nanjing, China, a biology and physics major.  The T.J. Wood Award for outstanding achievement by a male student went to Taylor Ballinger, from Berea, a speech communication major.  Berea’s highest faculty honor – the Seabury Award for Excellence in Teaching – was presented to Dr. Gary Mahoney, professor in the Technology and Industrial Arts Department.  A 1982 Berea alumnus, Mahoney has been a member of the Berea faculty since 1989.

Winner of the Paul C. Hager Award for Excellence in Advising was Dr. David Porter, Professor of Psychology and General Studies, who joined Berea in 2001.  College Health Service Physician Dr. Nancy Ryan received the Elizabeth Perry Miles Award for Community Service.

Earlier in the day, The Rev. Dr. Alison Boden, Dean of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at The University of Chicago, spoke to the graduates and their families at the morning Baccalaureate Service, in Phelps Stokes Chapel.  The traditional Nurses Pinning Service for nursing graduates and their families took place at 9 a.m. in Union Church.

Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard.  He also is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies and Africana Studies.  From 1991 to 2006, Gates served as Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard.

The author of many books, articles, essays and reviews, Gates is widely recognized for his extensive research of African American history and literature and has co-authored, co-edited or produced some of the most comprehensive African American reference materials in the country.  An influential cultural critic, Gates’s publications include a 1994 cover story for “Time” magazine, numerous articles for the “New Yorker” and in 2004, a biweekly guest column in “The New York Times.”

Gates’s most recent book is “Finding Oprah’s Roots, Finding Your Own,” (2007), a meditation on genetics, genealogy and race.  Other recent books are “America Behind the Color Line:  Dialogues with African Americans” (2004), “African American Lives,” co-edited with Evelyn Books Higginbotham (2004) and “The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” edited with Hollis Robbins (2006).

Gates also has written and produced a number of documentaries.  In 2006, his widely acclaimed PBS documentary, also called “African American Lives,” was the first documentary series to employ geneaology and science to provide an understanding of African American history.  It was followed in 2007 by “Oprah’s Roots:  An African American Lives Special,” also on PBS, further examining the genealogical and genetic heritage of Oprah Winfrey, who had been featured in the original documentary.  Gates also wrote and produced the documentaries “Wonders of the African World” (2000) and “America Beyond the Color Line” (2004) for the BBC and PBS and authored the companion volumes to both series.  He is currently at work on a four-hour sequel to “African American Lives,” which is scheduled to air in February 2008.

Born and raised in Keyser, West Virgina, Gates wrote the popular “Colored People: A Memoir” published in 1994, about his childhood experiences there in the 1950s and 1960s.  He received his B.A. degree in history from Yale and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge.  Before joining the faculty at Harvard in 1991, Gates taught at Yale, Cornell and Duke.

Honors for Gates include a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant (1981), the George Polk Award for Social Commentary (1993), “Time” magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans” list (1997), a National Humanities Medal (1998), election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1999) and the Jay B. Hubbell Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literary Studies from the Modern Language Association (2006).  He has received 44 honorary degrees.  In 2006, he was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution, after he traced his lineage back to John Redman, a Free Negro who fought in the Revolutionary War.

Honorary degree recipient Jean E. Fairfax has had a long and distinguished career in public service as a civil rights worker, an advocate for the rights and welfare of children and the elderly and a trustee of a wide range of philanthropic and educational institutions.  She began her career as dean of women at Kentucky State College (now Kentucky State University) from 1942-44, where she worked to integrate the YWCA and coordinated other interracial services.  For 19 years, she served in several capacities with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in the U.S. and abroad, from directing Quaker relief for war refugees in Austria to service with the AFSC’s Southern Civil Rights Program in the 1950s and 60s South. When all public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia, were closed by state order because county officials refused to comply with court orders to integrate, Fairfax found temporary homes in other states for black children so they could continue their schooling.  Several were enrolled in the Berea College Foundation School.  Fairfax also served for 20 years with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in black communities across the South.  She holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University and completed additional postgraduate studies at Harvard University.

The Rev. Dr. Boden, Berea’s Baccalaureate speaker, is a United Church of Christ minister.  A graduate of Vassar College (A.B.), she holds degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York (M.Div.), and the University of Bradford UK (Ph.D).  In addition to serving as Dean of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago, Rev. Dr. Boden is Senior Lecturer in the Divinity School and College, and co-chair of the Board of the Human Rights Program.  Her teaching interests include religion and human rights, violence and religion, religious disciplines, and ministry studies.  She is the author of numerous articles and chapters on religion in the academy, human rights and religion, and a variety of justice issues.  Her book “Women’s Rights and Religious Practice” will be published in fall, 2007.

Berea, the South’s first interracial and coeducational college, founded in 1855, focuses on learning, labor, and service. Berea charges no tuition, admitting only academically promising students, primarily from Appalachia, who have limited economic resources. All students must work 10 hours weekly, earning money for their books, room and board. Graduates from Berea go on to distinguish themselves and the College in many fields, including science, arts, education, government, and social services.