Nearly 315 students are expected to earn diplomas Saturday, May 19 during the 147th annual Westminster College commencement ceremonies. The 2000-2001 academic year will conclude with a baccalaureate service at 10:30 a.m. in Orr Auditorium, and commencement at 2:30 p.m. on the Senior Terrace of Old Main.

The baccalaureate service includes several numbers on the organ by Dr. Elizabeth Harrison, assistant professor of music and college organist at Westminster College, and an anthem by members of a senior class choral group. A picnic luncheon will be served in the quadrangle following the conclusion of this service.

Preceding graduation, spectators will hear the music of The Westminster College Faculty Brass Quintet. Bagpipe players Jeff Gaynor and Larry Herrick will lead the grand march. The class of 2001 has selected Sarah M. Miller, biology major from Beaver Falls to deliver the senior class remarks.

Three speakers, Robert Abernethy, Lester R. Brown, and Marion L. Furlong, will receive honorary doctorate degrees during commencement, and will offer advice to the graduating class. Dr. John Deegan Jr., vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, and Leonard M. Carroll, chair of the Westminster College board of trustees, will hood the honorary degree recipients.

Abernethy is a veteran television news correspondent who created and developed Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, the award-winning PBS television news magazine which covers all religions, all denominations and all expressions of spirituality. Before launching this program, Abernethy served as a correspondent for NBC news for more than four decades, reporting on a wide variety of national and international events.

Abernethy, who earned his undergraduate and master's degrees from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is also the author of Introduction to Tomorrow, a history of the United States involvement with the rest of the world from 1945-65.

Brown is president, senior researcher, and founder of the Worldwatch Institute, a private, non-profit Washington-based research institute devoted to the analysis of global environmental and environmentally related issues. Starting his career as a farmer growing tomatoes in southern New Jersey with his brother, Brown is now described as "one of the world's most influential thinkers, and "the guru of the global environmental movement."

His publications have been translated into all the world's major languages, and have become the Bible of the global environmental movement. Brown, an author of a dozen books, earned his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University, his masters' from the University of Maryland and Harvard University.

Furlong is chief executive officer and founder of Lark Enterprises, Inc., a vocational rehabilitation agency that provides training and work opportunities for individual with special employment needs. Lark, which started the program with only two individuals performing subcontracted work for one company, is currently a multi-facility organization serving approximately 550 individuals annually.

Furlong has served six terms as a board member of the Pennsylvania Association of Rehabilitation Facilities (PARF). She was founder and president of both the Pennsylvania Association of Workshop Directors and the Pennsylvania Association of Sheltered Workshops. These two organizations joined and became PARF. At PARF's 25th anniversary celebration in 1994, Furlong was named honorary founder because of her involvement with the two organizations that preceded it.

Following the conclusion of commencement exercises, there will be a reception for students, family, faculty, administration and staff on the quadrangle.