William Carey University will award degrees to more than 400 students during three commencement ceremonies August 11 and 12. All ceremonies will be held at Temple Baptist Church, located at 5220 Old Highway 11 in Hattiesburg. The graduation services have been moved off-campus this year due to continuing repairs from the January tornado.
Combined with spring commencement, Carey will graduate more than 1,000 students for the seventh consecutive year.
The schedule and guest speakers are as follows:
Friday, August 11 at 6 p.m. – Commencement for doctoral candidates (education and nursing), education specialist, and master’s degree students from the Hattiesburg campus. Guest speaker will be Dr. Roger Parrott, who has served as president of Belhaven University since 1995. Prior to that he served as president of Sterling College from 1989-1995. He is a third-generation college president, and was one of America’s youngest college presidents, first elected at age 34. He serves on several boards and was chair of the 2004 Forum for World Evangelization hosted by Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. He is the author of “The Long View: Lasting Strategies for Rising Leaders.” Parrot earned a Ph.D. in higher education administration and a master’s degree in education administration, both from the University of Maryland. He received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Eastern Nazarene College. He and his wife MaryLou have two children.
Saturday, August 12 at 9 a.m. – Commencement for Hattiesburg campus undergraduates. Pastor Reginald Woullard will be the guest speaker. Woullard is a graduate of Hattiesburg High School, attended the University of Mississippi on a football scholarship, and received a Bachelor of Science in education from William Carey University in 1985. He served in the field of education for more than 20 years before retiring in 2007. Woullard entered the ministry in 1989. He received a bachelor’s degree in theology from Mississippi Baptist Seminary. In 2007, he received a master’s in theology and a doctorate in theology from the New Foundation Theological Seminary. He has served as pastor of Shady Grove Baptist Church in Eastabuchie, Mary Magdalene in Eatonville, Good Hope in New Augusta, and Antioch Baptist Church in Hattiesburg. He has served on the board of trustees for Forrest General Hospital and the board of directors of the YMCA of Hattiesburg. Woullard and his wife Joyce have four children.
Saturday, August 12 at 1 p.m. – Commencement for the Tradition campus students. Guest speaker will be Congressman Steven Palazzo, who represents Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District. Palazzo is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, a current member of the Mississippi National Guard, and former member of the Mississippi House of Representatives. He currently serves on the House Appropriations Committee, where he sits on three subcommittees: commerce, justice, science; agriculture; and Homeland Security (recently named vice chair). His military experience has provided Palazzo the opportunity to lead the House National Guard Caucus, where he remains chairman. In 2016, he also took the helm of the House Aerospace Caucus. A Gulf Coast native, Palazzo is the father of three children.
For more information about commencement, please call the registrar’s office at (601) 318-6195.