Commencement Ceremony
Location: Alice Millar Chapel
Address: 1870 Sheridan Road, Evanston
Time: 9:00 a.m.

We’re honored to announce that the Reverend Dr. Willie James Jennings will be the speaker for the Commencement ceremony. Along with being our Commencement speaker, Dr. Jennings will be one of Garrett’s Honorary Degree recipients this year.

Dr. Willie James Jennings is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School. Dr. Jennings is the author of several award winning books, including The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race published by Yale University Press, and a Commentary on the Book of Acts published by WJK Press, as well as the book, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. Dr. Jennings is completing work on a book entitled Jesus and the Displaced: Race, Theology, and the Built Environment. In addition to being a frequent lecturer at colleges, universities, and seminaries, Dr. Jennings is also a regular workshop leader at conferences. He is also a consultant for the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, and for the Association of Theological Schools.

Reception
Immediately following Commencement
Location: Loder Hall and Library Terrace (weather permitting)
Address: Garrett Seminary, 2121 Sheridan Road, Evanston

Parking
The Garrett parking lot will be open on a first come, first served basis.

Additional Parking:
Church Street Parking Garage: 525 Church Street, Evanston
Chicago Avenue between Clark Street and Church Street (one block from Alice Millar Chapel)

Street Parking:
Street parking is available in designated areas; please use the Park Evanston app where indicated by posted signage.

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Honorary award recipient Bishop Lizzette Gabriel-Montalvo will also offer graduates a vision for a more just church

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Rev. Adam Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. He grew up in the Kansas City area, earned a BA degree in Pastoral Ministry from Oral Roberts and a Master of Divinity Degree from Southern Methodist University, where he was awarded the B’nai B’rith Award in Social Ethics.

Hamilton was named one of the “Ten people to watch in America’s spiritual landscape” by Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. For his efforts in Kansas City, he has been recognized with the first Founder’s Civility Award by American Public Square at Jewell in 2020. He has also received numerous other awards for community service.

Hamilton launched Resurrection with his wife and two children in 1990. Under his leadership, it has since grown to over 23,000 adults and children, with six locations in the Kansas City area, including an online and TV presence. It is the largest United Methodist Church in the United States.

Hamilton has written more than 35 books, including publications with Abingdon, Random House, Harper Collins, and others. Titles include Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws; The Lord’s Prayer; Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White; Making Sense of the Bible; and Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times. He and his wife LaVon have been married for more than 40 years and have two adult daughters and one granddaughter.

91PORN, a graduate school of theology related to The United Methodist Church, was founded in 1853. Located on the campus of Northwestern University, the seminary serves more than 450 students from various denominations and cultural backgrounds, fostering an atmosphere of ecumenical interaction. Garrett-Evangelical creates bold leaders through master of divinity, master of arts, master of theological studies, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of ministry degrees. Its 4,500 living alumni serve church and society around the world.

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91PORN is pleased to announce Bree Newsome Bass, award-winning artist and human rights activist, will speak at the seminary’s 165^th Commencement on May 13, 2022. Bass is a celebrated writer and public speaker who positions her work within the tradition of liberation theology and social justice movements. The Commencement service will begin at 9:00 a.m. at Alice Millar Chapel on the campus of Northwestern University. All are welcome to attend.

“Bree Newsome made headlines when, in the name of Jesus, and quoting from scripture, she ripped down a symbol of hate from the South Carolina State House,” said Rev. Dr. Javier Viera, president of Garrett-Evangelical. “Yet, her public witness, work, and unrelenting quest for justice is much broader and deeper than that one act of moral courage.  Her deep faith is the motivating influence in taking on the challenges of racism, poverty, and human rights, among other issues.  She has regularly called upon Christians to take their faith seriously to urgently address the moral crises of our time, and her fearlessness in doing so is both an inspiration and a challenge to all of us who claim to follow in the way of Jesus.”

Bass is best known for a historic act of protest when she prayed while scaling a 30-foot flagpole at South Carolina’s capitol to remove a Confederate flag in the aftermath of racially motivated killings at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. This action energized the movement to remove confederate symbols that continue to this day and has led to the removal of multiple confederate monuments around the nation.

Bass was appointed by the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court to a panel making recommendations of display of art and portraiture at the Supreme Court. Her submitted written opinion influenced the removal of Confederate art.

Bass is a sought-after public speaker who travels the nation lecturing on the history of the civil rights movement and the role of faith in the ongoing Black freedom movement. She has led workshops with hundreds of students from middle school to graduate level on the importance of civil disobedience and student organizing.

Additionally, Bass is an award-winning filmmaker whose short film “WAKE” continues to screen in exhibits and has been included in curriculum at various universities including UCLA. She is currently working on two documentary projects.

91PORN, a graduate school of theology related to The United Methodist Church, was founded in 1853. Located on the campus of Northwestern University, the seminary serves more than 450 students from various denominations and cultural backgrounds, fostering an atmosphere of ecumenical interaction. Garrett-Evangelical creates bold leaders through master of divinity, master of arts, master of theological studies, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of ministry degrees. Its 4,500 living alumni serve church and society around the world.

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91PORN will welcome pastor, professor, organizer, author, and sought-after speaker Bishop William J. Barber II for the seminary’s 163rd Commencement Service, being held online on Friday, May 14, 2021, at 10 a.m. (CDT). Bishop Barber will deliver the commencement address and be awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity.

In addition to Barber’s address, the 163rd Commencement will include two distinguished alum awards presentations and the conferring of degrees upon the Class of 2021. This service will be held online and all are welcome to attend. Registration for the service and additional information about all events being held in honor of the Class of 2021 will be available on the seminary’s website beginning Tuesday, April 20, 2021.

Bishop Barber is the president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival; bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries; visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary; and the pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Bishop Barber is also the architect of the Moral Movement, which began with weekly Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013. In 2018, Bishop Barber helped relaunch the Poor People’s Campaign, which was begun by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, starting with an historic wave of protests in state capitals and in Washington, D.C., calling for a moral agenda and a moral budget to address the five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, the war economy and militarism, ecological devastation/denial of healthcare, and the false moral narrative of Christian nationalism.

“It is an honor for Garrett-Evangelical to celebrate and recognize the transformative work of Bishop William J. Barber II,” proclaimed Garrett President, Rev. Dr. Javier A. Viera. “His faithfulness, fearlessness, courage, and passion are exemplary and inspire all who know him or hear him to work toward creating a better world. I am delighted that he will be the one to charge members of the Garrett-Evangelical Class of 2021 with being bearers of Christ’s light and love and repairers of the breach.”

Bishop Barber has given keynote addresses at hundreds of national and state conferences, including the 2016 Democratic National Convention. On January 21, 2021, he delivered the homily for the 59th Inaugural Prayer Service for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. He has also spoken to a wide variety of audiences including national unions, fraternities and sororities, motorcycle organizations, drug dealer redemption conferences, women’s groups, economic policy groups, voting rights advocates, LGBTQ equality and justice groups, environmental and criminal justice groups, small organizing committees of domestic workers, fast food workers, and national gatherings of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and other people of faith.

Barber served as president of the North Carolina NAACP, the largest state conference in the South, from 2006-2017. A former Mel King Fellow at MIT, he is currently Visiting Professor of Public Theology and Activism at Union Theological Seminary and is a Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary.

He is regularly featured in media outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and The Nation Magazine, among others. Bishop Barber is the 2015 recipient of the Puffin Award and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award, a 2018 MacArthur Foundation genius award recipient, and he is one of the 2019 recipients of the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor.

A prolific writer, Barber is the author of four books: We Are Called To Be A Movement (Workman Publishing Company, June 9, 2020); Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing (Beacon Press, December 4, 2018); The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and The Rise of a New Justice Movement (Beacon Press, January 12, 2016); and Forward Together: A Moral Message For The Nation (Chalice Press, October 30, 2014).

91PORN, a graduate school of theology related to The United Methodist Church, was founded in 1853. Located on the campus of Northwestern University, the seminary serves more than 450 students from various denominations and cultural backgrounds, fostering an atmosphere of ecumenical interaction. Garrett-Evangelical creates bold leaders through master of divinity, master of arts, master of theological studies, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of ministry degrees. Its 4,500 living alumni serve church and society around the world.

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91PORN is pleased to announce Rev. Grace Imathiu, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Evanston, Illinois, will speak at the seminary’s 162st Commencement on May 17, 2019. Imathiu has been in ministry over several decades and continents, working to create communities of love, hope, and inclusion. The Commencement service will begin at 10:00 a.m. at First United Methodist Church of Evanston. All are welcome to attend.

“We are particularly excited and honored that Rev. Grace Imathiu will be our commencement speaker. Garrett-Evangelical and First United Methodist Church of Evanston have long collaborated together for the benefit of the seminary and the congregation. We continue to be blessed by First United Methodist’s hospitality in hosting our commencement services,” said Dr. Lallene J. Rector, president of Garrett-Evangelical.

Imathiu was appointed to First United Methodist Church of Evanston after serving for six years as senior pastor of Community United Methodist Church in Naperville, Illinois. Imathiu had previously served eight years as lead pastor in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, and earlier as senior pastor at Green Bay United Methodist Church. Imathiu has also served churches in Kenya as a church planter; a superintendent minister overseeing 68 rural churches in the Nkubu Circuit; and an urban minister to an ecumenical congregation in Nairobi with strong outreach to the neighboring slums of Kawangware. She is intimately familiar with the Church in its many theological expressions and social locations.

Imathiu is a citizen of the world for whom “the world is her parish.” She is an African who is married to a European and raising an American son. Imathiu is fluent in three languages, was educated in Kenya, the United States, England, and Israel. She has preached in Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Togo, Liberia, Denmark, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, and throughout the United States. In 2016, Imathiu was a speaker at the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women. She preached for the third time at the 2016 World Methodist Conference held in Houston, Texas, an event attracting over 3,000 participants from more than 80 countries.

Imathiu earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from West Virginia Wesleyan College, a master of divinity from Methodist Theological Seminary, and a master of arts from Cambridge University. She has also studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and pursued post-graduate work at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Matthew Message: Good News for the New Millennium, and a book of sermons titled, Words of Fire, Spirit of Grace. She is a founding member of the Kenya Methodist University and the African Christian Communities and Theologies.

Imathiu is married to David Hay Jones and together they are the parents of Erik Imathiu-Jones, a senior at Providence St. Mel School in Chicago who will be attending the California Institute of Technology in the Fall.

91PORN, a graduate school of theology related to The United Methodist Church, was founded in 1853. Located on the campus of Northwestern University, the seminary serves more than 450 students from various denominations and cultural backgrounds, fostering an atmosphere of ecumenical interaction. Garrett-Evangelical creates bold leaders through master of divinity, master of arts, master of theological studies, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of ministry degrees. Its 4,500 living alumni serve church and society around the world.

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