RADFORD -- With true Highlander spirit, 76 graduates and about 800 family members and friends braved harsh winter weather conditions to participate in Radford University’s Winter Commencement Ceremony for 2009 graduates in RU’s Bondurant Auditorium on Sunday, Feb. 7.

Radford University President Penelope W. Kyle conferred degrees, greeted and congratulated each member of RU’s seven colleges who participated in the ceremony, and she recognized 20 of those graduating with Latin honors of cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude or honor society recognition.

“I hope you will remember the many things you have learned here,” said Stephen Owen, president of the RU Faculty Senate, in his congratulatory remarks on behalf of the faculty. “As Radford University’s motto says, we’re ‘investing in lifetimes,’ and this is only the beginning of your successes, of which I hope there will be many.”

(For more photos, please see Winter Commencement 2009.)

Lauren Duffy, senior class president, challenged her graduating undergraduate classmates “to make a difference in the world in the name of Radford” in honor of RU’s Centennial celebration.

The single commencement ceremony featured both undergraduate and graduate students. The graduate hooding ceremony honored 13 master’s degree candidates and 63 undergraduate students were awarded their degrees. The traditional Pinning Ceremony for the Waldron School of Health and Human Services’ nursing students was also held on Sunday in Porterfield Hall's Pridemore Playhouse.

The original ceremonies, scheduled for Dec. 18 and 19, were cancelled as a result of a winter storm that blanketed the area with deep snow and shut down most of western Virginia’s roadways and transportation systems.   During the original winter ceremony, 82 graduate students and 384 undergraduate students, all of whom had completed their required coursework during the summer and fall semesters, were expected to graduate.

Students who were not able to or chose not to participate in the Sunday, Feb. 7 ceremony will be eligible to participate in Radford University’s Spring Commencement on Saturday, May 8, 2010.