400 Receive Degrees at College of Charleston’s Mid-year Commencement

December 15, 2002

Padgett Powell, speaker at C of C’s mid-year commencement Photo credit: Jerry Bauer

More than 350 undergraduate students and 50 graduate students received their degrees at the College of Charleston’s mid-year commencement on December 15 at the North Charleston Coliseum.

The event, held for the first time at the Coliseum, was led by President Lee Higdon. The graduation ceremony began at 2:30 p.m.

The commencement speaker was acclaimed novelist and College of Charleston alumnus Padgett Powell. Currently a professor of English at the University of Florida, Powell received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

After graduating from the College in 1975 with a bachelor’s in chemistry, Powell changed gears when he pursued his M.A in English from the University of Houston, Texas. He has since published four novels—Edisto, A Woman Named Drown, Edisto Revisited, and Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men and two story collections—Typical and Aliens of Affection. His fiction, non-fiction, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, Paris Review, New York Times Book Review, and Oxford American. Powell’s awards include a Whiting Foundation Writer’s Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Paris Review John Train Humor Prize, and the Prix de Rome from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Contact:Virginia Friedman
VP for Strategic Communications
(843) 953-8171
friedmanv@cofc.edu