Centre News

Last Sunday, 291 students graduated from Centre College. The
graduation rate for the Class of 2010 is 87 percent, a Centre
record.
Wayne Meisel, president of the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner
Foundation, was this year's commencement speaker. During his
speech, he asked the graduates to remember the importance of
continuing their habits of giving and service as they begin their
new lives as college alumni.
Cornelia Gordon received the Gavin Easton Wiseman
Valedictorian Prize as the top female graduate; Joey McGill
received the George Winston Welsh Valedictorian Prize as the
top male graduate.

On Sunday, May 23, 291 students—a record number—graduated from Centre College. The commencement speaker for the College’s 187th commencement ceremony was Wayne Meisel, president of the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation. He received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Centre during the ceremony.

The graduation rate for the Class of 2010 is 86 percent, an all-time high for the College. This is by far the highest graduation rate in Kentucky and more than twice the four-year rate for any of the state’s public institutions.

Meisel called upon graduates to remember the importance of continuing their lives of giving and service once they step off Centre’s campus and into the wider world.

“I’ve always wanted to be part of a historic class. Today you’ve given me my wish,” Meisel told the graduates.

Meisel gave the Class of 2010 three bits of advice: Don’t live in the shadow of someone else’s dreams or dogma; don’t think you’re special because you aren’t so different from everyone else; and if your world doesn’t inspire you, then you must inspire your world.

Since 1989, when he was 29, Wayne W. Meisel has served as the president of the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation, a national philanthropic organization that provides service-based scholarships to more than 3,000 students and works with colleges and universities to create and sustain cultures of service by building up campus-wide programs to integrate service with academic learning.

In 1994, he received a national Jefferson Award—a “Nobel Prize for public service” — from the American Institute for Public Service. That same year, Time magazine recognized Meisel as one of the top-50 leaders internationally under the age of 40. He has also received the highest honors bestowed to individuals by the United Way of America, the Lyndhurst Foundation, and Common Cause.

Valedictorian prizes were presented to Cornelia Gordon and Joseph McGill. Gordon, of San Diego, received the Gavin Easton Wiseman Valedictorian Prize as the top female graduate. McGill, of Fort Thomas, Ky., received the George Winston Welsh Valedictorian Prize as the top male graduate.