University of Mount Olive Graduation Set for December 8, 2012

MOUNT OLIVE – University of Mount Olive will graduate approximately 320 students at its 59th winter commencement on Saturday, December 8, 2012.  Graduation exercises are scheduled for 2:00 p.m. in the George and Annie Dail Kornegay Arena.

The commencement speaker will be Carl Kasell, judge and scorekeeper of National Public Radio’s weekly news quiz show, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! He previously hosted the NPR news program Early Morning Edition and provided newscasts for NPR’s daily newsmagazine, Morning Edition, for 30 years. Kasell has received numerous awards over the span of his incredible career including: the Development Exchange Inc.’s (DEI) President’s Award for his lifetime contributions to public radio, the George Foster Peabody Institutional Award for NPR’s Morning Edition, the Leo C. Lee Friend of Public Radio News Award for lasting commitment to public radio journalism, and the Public Radio Regional Organization (PRRO) Award for what a member of the selection committee called his “consistently flawless delivery” of newscasts. In 2004, UNC at Chapel Hill selected Kasell as an inductee to the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame.  Kasell has also been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame (2010) and the Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame (2012).

Preceding graduation, University of Mount Olive will hold its traditional baccalaureate service in Southern Bank Auditorium at 10:30 a.m. in Raper Hall. Dr. Alexis Poe Davis will be the keynote speaker.

Davis is the Quality Enhancement Program director and an assistant professor of English at University of Mount Olive. She graduated from East Carolina University, where she earned her doctorate in technical and professional discourse in 2010, her master of fine arts degree in English with a concentration in technical and professional communication in 2003, and her baccalaureate degree in English in 2001. Davis recently developed the University of Mount Olive Writing Center.

University of Mount Olive is a private institution rooted in the liberal arts tradition with defining Christian values. The College, sponsored by the Convention of Original Free Will Baptists, has locations in Mount Olive, New Bern, Wilmington, Goldsboro, Research Triangle Park, Washington and Jacksonville. For more information, visit www.moc.edu.