United Ways of New England director Marian Heard and Charlottesville, Va. pastor Dr. Timothy Noel will be the speakers at Commencement and Baccalaureate ceremonies at Berea College Sunday, May 21.
Heard, who became a member of the College's Board of Trustees in January, will be the Commencement speaker at the 2 p.m. ceremony in Seabury Center, addressing 180 degree candidates.

Also active in a variety of other service organizations, she is a member and secretary of entertainer Michael Jackson's Heal the World Foundation. As director of the National Mentoring Partnership, she has been a youth mentor for the past five years and serves as the organization's national spokesperson. She is the founding president and CEO of the Points of Light Foundation, organized to perpetuate President George Bush's call for volunteers to address serious social concerns in the U.S.

For her work on behalf of children, Heard has received numerous regional and
national honors and has been awarded several honorary doctoral degrees. In 1998, she was named the National Public Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers.

Noel will be the speaker at the Sunday morning Baccalaureate Service, which begins at 10:30

a.m. in Phelps Stokes Chapel. His sermon title is "Paso Por Aqui" ("I pass through this place").

Pastor of Broadus Memorial Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Va., Noel was the minister at Lexington Avenue Baptist Church in Danville from 1992-99. He holds MDiv and PhD degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and is a 1972 Berea College graduate.

The day's other public events include the Nurses Pinning Service at 9 a.m. in Union Church and a reception for graduates and guests from 4-5 p.m. in the Old Seabury Gynasium following Commencement..