Westminster College has announced that Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer of the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals will deliver the 171-year-old institution’s commencement address at 2 p.m. May 14, in Champ Auditorium.
Pfeiffer’s address is part of a number of commencement activities at Westminster starting with baccalaureate at 10:30 a.m. in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, part of America’s National Churchill Museum. Baccalaureate seating is limited to graduates, family members and event employees only.
“The College is pleased to have Judge Pfeiffer back on campus to deliver this year’s commencement address,” said President and Chief Transformation Officer Donald P. Lofe, Jr. “Our graduating seniors can expect very specific, personalized advice about what a degree from Westminster College truly means and the success it leads to in the professional world.”
Pfeiffer graduated from Westminster in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and earned his juris doctor degree in 1991 from the University of Missouri School of Law.
Pfeiffer was appointed to the Western District Court of Appeals by Gov. Jay Nixon in 2009 and served as chief judge from 2016 to 2018.
His tenure on the Court of Appeals followed a career in private practice spanning nearly 20 years, where he specialized as a trial and appellate attorney in civil litigation.
He currently teaches American Jurisprudence at Westminster as an adjunct faculty member.
The ceremony will also include a unique diploma presentation for the late Rev. Charles Chrisman Tevis, Class of 1906, to his grandson, Jeffrey Tevis, of Irvine, CA.
The Tevis family searched for the diploma for decades, and Westminster agreed to reprint the document this spring after officially confirming Tevis’ Bachelor of Arts degree.
Following commencement exercises, graduates will participate in the Columns Ceremony, a time-honored Westminster tradition. Just as they are welcomed as freshmen into the Westminster community by walking through the columns onto campus, graduates say goodbye to Westminster by walking the opposite direction through the columns and into the world.
Doors to the graduation ceremony will open at 1 p.m., with the ceremony starting promptly at 2 p.m. Seating is limited to those with a ticket and members of the news media.
For those who cannot attend in person, Graduation 2022 will be livestreamed via Westminster’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.