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The Reverend Dr. William H. Willimon, dean of the Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University, will deliver the baccalaureate address at Lafayette College at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, May 22.
At the College's 164th Commencement exercises, to be held at 2:15 p.m. that afternoon, he will be awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Maya Angelou will deliver the commencement address and will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. Both the baccalaureate and commencement ceremonies will be held outdoors on the Skillman Library Plaza.
Willimon has held his posts at Duke since 1984. He preaches each Sunday at Duke Chapel and directs the programs of campus ministry there. He is also a professor in the Duke Divinity School and teaches a popular undergraduate course, The Search for Meaning.
He is the author of 43 books, of which nearly a million copies have been sold, and more than 500 scholarly articles, which have appeared in a host of publications including The Christian Ministry, Quarterly Review, Liturgy, Worship, and Christianity Today. His Pulpit Resource, a quarterly journal of biblical interpretation, suggested approaches, and illustrative material for the preparation of sermons, is used each week by more than 8,000 pastors in the United States, Canada, and Australia. In 1996, an international survey conducted by Baylor University named him one of the 12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world.
He is an editor-at-large of The Christian Century. He has served as editor and expositor, with his wife, Patricia Parker, for Abingdon's International Lesson Annual. He has written curriculum materials and video for youth, young adults, and adults.
Willimon has lectured and taught courses at many pastors' schools, colleges, and universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. In 1988, he served on the theological faculty of the University of Bonn, Germany, and in 1991 he was distinguished guest professor at the University of Muenster, Germany.
He has served as vice chairman of the board of trustees of Wofford College and chairperson of the University Council Committee for the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale and is a member of the board of overseers of Memorial Church, Harvard University. He serves on the editorial boards of The Christian Century, Pulpit Digest, Preaching, The Wittenburg Door, and Leadership.
He has served as pastor of churches in Georgia and South Carolina. For four years, beginning in 1976, he served as assistant professor of liturgy and worship at Duke Divinity School, where he taught courses in liturgics and homiletics and served as director of the Summer Ministerial Course of Study School at Duke, and presiding minister in the Divinity School Chapel. When he returned to the parish ministry in 1980, he was visiting associate professor of liturgy and worship at Duke Divinity School for three years
Willimon holds a doctor of sacred theology degree from Emory University, a master of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, and a bachelor's degree from Wofford College. He has been awarded honorary degrees from Wofford, Westminster College, and Lehigh University. In 1992 he was named as the first Distinguished Alumnus of Yale Divinity School.
Patricia Parker is manager of the Cokesbury Bookstore, Duke Divinity School. The Willimons have two children, William Parker and Harriet Patricia.
Founded in 1826, Lafayette is an independent, coeducational, residential, undergraduate institution granting bachelor's degrees in the liberal arts, sciences, and engineering. The College has 2,244 students and 183 full-time faculty, 99 percent of whom hold the doctorate or other terminal degree in their field.