Baccalaureate 2021

Sunday May 16, 2021

12:00 p.m. Video Release

Baccalaureate is the ceremony during Commencement Season in which the President, Provost, student participants, and a guest speaker address aspects of the moral life and its relation to liberal education through remarks, speeches, song, and readings from sacred texts.  By history and practice the baccalaureate is associated with the bachelor degree.  As such, it is a distinctly undergraduate event.

Join us for the 2021 Baccalaureate Ceremony, available as a video on this page from 12:00 p.m. on Sunday May 16, 2021

Click here to view and download the 2021 Baccalaureate Program

This year we are excited to have Dr. Justin McDaniel as the Baccalaureate Speaker. He currently serves as Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Professor of the Humanities & Undergraduate Studies Chair in Penn’s Department of Religious Studies.

Professor McDaniel is known for his dynamic teaching, writing and speaking on a wide variety of subjects in Buddhist Studies, Religious Studies and Human Flourishing. He has won teaching and advising awards at Harvard, Ohio, Cal and the Ludwig Prize for Teaching at Penn. His classes, including “Living Deliberately: Monks, Saints, and the Contemplative Life” (known around campus as the ”monk class”) and “Existential Despair” are among the most popular, innovative and beloved courses at Penn

Click here to listen to Professor McDaniel on a recent podcast hosted by our friends at the SNF Paideia Program.