Tag: Sidney T. Davis

Litany of Commission for the Class of 2020

Litany of Commission for the Class of 2020

Davis, Sidney T. portrait

Since 1978, the Baccalaureate Service has included a Litany of Commission written by Dr. Sidney T. Davis, Professor Emeritus of Religion and Christian Education and former Dean of the Chapel.

Dr. Davis, himself a student of Dr. Ralph C. Brown, Class of 1915 and a graduate in the class of 1936, has been an inspiration to many throughout the years. A faculty member from 1947-76, Dr. Davis mentored and inspired many church leaders. He continues to inspire present and future graduates of the college through the use of this Litany of Commission.

This is one tradition that does not have to be missed this year even though the COVID-19 pandemic has caused such upheaval in this time of celebration. In fact, as I went through the litany this week, it struck me that it only needed a mention of the situation at the beginning and at the end in order for it to apply to the class of 2020.  Here is the litany with those slight additions in italics.

The President:

Members of the graduating class of 2020, the Wesleyan of today: administration, faculty, staff, fellow students, families; are not able to be together physically in Wesley Chapel for Baccalaureate Service or in the Rockefeller Gymnasium for your Commencement exercises as we would all love to be. However, you are surrounded by an unseen cloud of witnesses – wherever you may be – who have given to all of us a rich heritage in love of learning, devotion to truth, concern for people.

Graduating Seniors:

We gladly take this heritage as our own this day. We pledge ourselves to its preservation.

Wesleyan Community:

We rejoice in your commitment to the excellence of great traditions. We support you. We pray for your success.

The President:

You have lived and studied among people of faith. Without the undergirding, strength and courage of faith in God, the Wesleyan community would never have been born and could not survive. Take faith and let it daily be your companion.

Graduating Seniors:

We take heart for we have seen faith at work. We would be people of faith and receive it as our own: Faith in God, faith in our fellow human beings, and faith in ourselves as persons of God.

Wesleyan Community:

We, too, are people of faith and know its sustaining power. May it be yours: Faith to keep you strong, steady and serving

The President:

Go then, for there is now a noble commission given to you. Because of the special gifts with which you have been endowed, because of the nurture of those gifts by the spirit of Wesleyan, you are hereby commissioned to go out into the world to make a difference to change it for the better, to enrich it with your own brand of creative goodness, to redeem it when it falters. Go then, and God go with you!

Graduating Seniors:

We accept our commission. We dare to go because we must. Indeed, circumstances have required us to go long before we were ready. God grant that we shall be of good courage, and be faithful to the trust invested in us by our families, by Wesleyan, by the Church, and by God.

All:  Amen

This Litany is not virtual. Yes, we would have preferred to say it in person. No, it is not changed because of the circumstances. In fact it may be more true today than ever! You are commissioned by generations of the Wesleyan community who have come before you to go out into the world, to make a difference to change it for the better, to enrich it with your own brand of creative goodness, to redeem it when it falters. 

Baccalaureate to the Future

Baccalaureate Graphic

The May 23, 1934 issue of the Pharos tells us that it is the custom of Wesleyan for the president to deliver the sermon at Baccalaureate. It also states that, “this service is always very impressive the more, perhaps, because it is more intimate than the major commencement ceremonies.”

The community is gathered to give thanks, to say farewell, to offer encouragement, and to send the graduates forth into the world. Up until 1972, all of the presidents of the college had been ordained Methodist ministers, so it makes sense that they would want to preach the main sermon at this occasion.

The first year that full college degrees were given was 1906. Records are a bit spotty much before 1930, but I am still digging through the piles of records to find more. Here is a list of what I have gathered so far as to who spoke, and the title of their sermon when available. There are some blanks left to fill in. Oddly some of the blanks are the most recent years as the archives are in transition while the library is being renovated! There is a LOT of history there!!!

Presidents Wier, Doney, Fleming, McCuskey, Broyles, Scarborough, and Martin preached a lot of the Baccalaureate Sermons throughout the years. I am in hopes that somewhere in those boxes or files I may yet come across transcripts of those to share.

In the last 50 years or so there have been many given by Bishops, and Alumni who are pastors and/or Trustees of the College.

This year one such person will speak. Joseph Kenaston, class of 1981, is a pastor and a trustee. He has shown leadership qualities throughout his life — President of the Community Council 1979-80 and President of the Senior Class 1981. His sermon will be titled, “A Therefore Moment.”

Kenaston, Joseph S.
Photo from West Virginia United Methodist Conference Journal 2017

Litany of Commission

Davis, Sidney T. portrait

Since 1978, the Baccalaureate Service has included a Litany of Commission written by Dr. Sidney T. Davis, Professor Emeritus of Religion and Christian Education and former Dean of the Chapel.

Dr. Davis, himself a graduate in the class of 1936, has been an inspiration to many throughout the years. A faculty member from 1947-76, Dr. Davis mentored and inspired many church leaders. He continues to inspire present and future graduates of the college through the use of this Litany of Commission.

The President:

Members of the graduating class of  _______, you stand in the midst of those who are the Wesleyan of today: administration, faculty, staff, fellow students, families; you also stand surrounded by an unseen cloud of witnesses who have given to all of us a rich heritage in love of learning, devotion to truth, concern for people.

Graduating Seniors:

We gladly take this heritage as our own this day. We pledge ourselves to its preservation.

Wesleyan Community:

We rejoice in your commitment to the excellence of great traditions. We support you. We pray for your success.

The President:

You have lived and studied among people of faith. Without the undergirding, strength and courage of faith in God, the Wesleyan community would never have been born and could not survive. Take faith and let it daily be your companion.

Graduating Seniors:

We take heart for we have seen faith at work. We would be people of faith and receive it as our own: Faith in God, faith in our fellow human beings, and faith in ourselves as persons of God.

Wesleyan Community:

We, too, are people of faith and know its sustaining power. May it be yours: Faith to keep you strong, steady and serving.

The President:

Go then, for there is now a noble commission given to you. Because of the special gifts with which you have been endowed, because of the nurture of those gifts by the spirit of Wesleyan, you are hereby commissioned to go out into the world to make a difference, to change it for the better, to enrich it with your own brand of creative goodness, to redeem it when it falters. Go then, and God go with you!

Graduating Seniors:

We accept our commission. We dare to go because we must. God grant that we shall be of good courage, and be faithful to the trust invested in us by our families, by Wesleyan, by the Church, and by God

All

Amen.

Bio – Davis, Sidney Thomas

Portrait by Bidwell

Born: June 30, 1910 (Puden, Tennessee)

Died: December 28, 1997

Education:

    • A.B. West Virginia Wesleyan College (1936)
    • S.T.B. Boston University
    • Ed.M. University of Pittsburgh

Served

    • Associate Professor of Rural Church Work
    • Director of Religious Activities 1951-52
    • Chaplain 1954-71

Taught :

    • Assistant Professor of Religious Education 1947-1954
    • Associate Professor of Religious Education 1955-1957
    • Associate Professor of Religion and Religious Education 1957-1959
    • Professor of Religion and Religious Education 1959-1976
    • Professor of Religion and Christian Education, Emeritus 1976-1997
    • Dean of Southwest Florida Program 1984-86

Notes:

  • Leave of Absence 1969. The Fall 1970 Sundial says, “He and Mrs. Davis circled the globe with stops for some time in India and Iran and finally for several months in Beirut, Lebanon, where he taught at the Haigazian College and she taught at Beirut College for Women. Dr. Davis made a study of minority religions in Iran.”
  • Wrote the Litany of Commission used in the West Virginia Weleyan College Baccalaureate Service

Sources:

    • Catalogs
    • Murmurmontis
    • Pharos
    • Sundial (Fall 1970)

PLM 4/28/2019

Connections and Legacies

Sometimes You Really Can Come Home Again

On Saturday, I had the chance to sit down and talk with Bishop Peter D. Weaver. He was reflecting on his time at West Virginia Wesleyan and how it had prepared him for his life’s work.

Weaver Committee 1965

Coming to Buckhannon

Pete Weaver was about 10 years old when his father, a Methodist minister, was assigned to the Emory Methodist Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A member of that congregation was Michael Late Benedum, the native of Bridgeport, WV who had amassed a fortune in the oil and gas industry. In spite of the large mansion and all of the trappings of a rich man, Weaver’s impression of Mr. Benedum was that of Christian humility.

Bridgeport United Methodist Church
Bridgeport United Methodist Church

The choir from Emory would go to Bridgeport and sing at Mr. Benedum’s home church each year, and when the time came for Pete to attend college, Mr. Benedum encouraged him to seek out a Methodist college. After visiting a few, he came to Buckhannon and immediately felt at home here among the beautiful campus and friendly people.

Campus photo grove side

Values Taught, Learned, and Lived

He arrived as a freshman in 1962, and had the opportunity to learn from such Wesleyan Giants as Ralph C. Brown, Sidney Davis and Jose Franquiz. These men taught him Bible, Religion, Philosophy. All three of these had earned the Doctor of Sacred Theology degree from Boston University. President Stanley H. Martin and Dean Orlo Strunk, Jr. had also earned that degree from Boston University. Boston University’s program emphasized Social Justice, Mission, Ecumenical work, Counseling, and Ethics. These emphases are evident at West Virginia Wesleyan to this day — perhaps still echoing the legacy of these men and others.

Brown (1915), Davis (1936), and Strunk (1953) were also graduates of WVWC.

Many other faculty members from Bible, Christian Education, History, Sociology, Psychology, and Religion were graduates of other theological schools as well including: Garrett-Evangelical, Iliff, Lutheran, Wesley, Western, and Yale Divinity School. The subjects being taught were being taught from the perspective of Love, Justice, Hope, and facing the realities of povery and injustice which was to be seen all throughout the world in various contexts.

In particular, he especially remembers the impact that Dr. Herb Coston had on his life in the class called Fundamental Social Problems. This was a course that was required of all freshmen. Read the course description here.

Other things kept Pete busy at Wesleyan as well, including writing for the Pharos, acting in plays, Phi Sigma Epsilon Fraternity, and serving on the Program Board for the new Benedum Campus Community Center.

Formative Times

College is always a formative time for students, and Peter Weaver was here at a very formative time for the college as well. Even as he was learning to struggle with the many social issues of the 1960s from faculty members who challenged and supported him, the college itself was being transformed.

The Stanley H. Martin era was one of incredible change and growth. New buildings included:

  • 1958 McCuskey Hall
  • 1959 Jenkins Hall
  • 1962 Doney Hall
  • 1963 Benedum Campus Community Center
  • 1963 Holloway Hall
  • 1964 Paul G. Benedum Hall
  • 1967 Christopher Hall of Science
  • 1967 Wesley Chapel and Martin Religious Center
  • 1972 Middleton Hall
  • 1972/1973 Wraparound addition to the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library

Campus Among the Hills

Coming Full Circle

After graduating from West Virginia Wesleyan in 1966, Peter earned his Masters of Divinity at Drew University and then followed in the footsteps of some of his mentor professors and went to Boston University to pursue the Doctor of Theology degree. He served churches for several years before being elected to be a Bishop in 1996 serving as Bishop in  Eastern Pennsylvania and Deleware conferences. From 2004-2006 he served as the President of the Council of Bishops.

In 2004, Peter Weaver was appointed to the New England Conference. As he was sitting in Boston University’s Marsh Chapel in that role, he looked up and saw the plaque bearing the name of none other than Stanley H. Martin. The chapel was dedicated in 1950.

Marsh Chapel Plaque

On Thursday, Peter Weaver gave the opening sermon for the West Virginia Annual Conference worship service — in Wesley Chapel. On Sunday, he assisted West Virginia’s Resident Bishop, Sandra Steiner Ball, in the ordination service for new clergy. He was home again on this campus which had so helped to build him even as Stanley Martin was building the campus.

I have to believe that Michael Benedum, Ralph C. Brown, Herb Coston, Jose Franquiz, Stanley Martin, Orlo Strunk, Jr., and all the rest, must be pleased.

Bishops Weaver and Steiner Ball June 10 2018