Cum laude graduates stood before receiving their degrees Sunday. (David Boraks photo)

Davidson College presented diplomas to 423 members of the Class of 2009 in Commencement exercises on Sunday.

As is tradition at Davidson, President Thomas W. Ross ’72 was the only speaker for the occasion. Ross reminded graduates of the requirements of effective leadership, and urged them, “Don’t just live. Lead.”

“Some say leaders are born, not developed –but I simply do not think people are natural-born leaders,” President Ross said. “Leadership is about much more than a title or a place in an organizational chart. I truly believe any of us can become a strong, effective leader, and this has proven true for so many of you here at Davidson.”

He concluded, “Davidson has prepared you. Now you must decide whether to continue to prepare yourself to be a leader; you must decide if you will seize the opportunity when it arises to serve and to lead for the common good. The world needs leaders, and you are ready.”

President Tom Ross (left) and Dean of Students Tom Shandley greet students during the academic procession before graduation. (David Boraks photo)

HONORS AWARDED

Twenty-six percent of graduates received Latin honors as outstanding scholars– cum laude (73) and magna cum laude (37).

First Honor for the highest grade point average in the class went to Benjamin P. Van Dyke of Simpsonville, S.C. He graduated magna cum laude with honors in psychology. Van Dyke compiled an outstanding record of leadership and scholarship at Davidson, and recently received the psychology department’s William G. Workman Award as the top senior major in the class. For two years he assisted and tutored students in statistics at North Mecklenburg High School, and he served as statistics consultant to the International Baccalaureate psychology teacher there.

He was elected as president of the College Union Board, and in 2007 received that organization’s C. Shaw Smith Award for Innovative Leadership and Dedication. He was a hall counselor for first year students, a volunteer tutor at the Ada Jenkins Community Center After School Program and a volunteer at the Community Free Clinic in Concord. In the summer of 2007, he studied in Kenya.

Second Honor went to Sarah C. Rhodes of Concord, who graduated magna cum laude with High Honors in Neuroscience. She is daughter of Davidson graduates Dr. David F. Rhodes (Class of 1981) and Cindy Chavez Rhodes (Class of 1982).

Ms. Rhodes conducted extensive research with Dickson Professor of Psychology Julio Ramirez on the brain’s ability to reorganize its neuronal circuitry following injury, an area of investigation that may have application in the search for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.

As a junior she received a prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship, which recognizes the most outstanding rising juniors and seniors in the nation in science, engineering and mathematics. She made several presentations of her work at professional meetings.

Ms. Rhodes plans to volunteer for the next few months at an orphanage in Nepal. She will return to the Davidson campus in the summer of 2010 to work for a year as manager of Professor Ramirez’s research lab.

TEACHING AWARDS

Theater professor Ann Marie Costa received one of two faculty awards for teaching.

Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Awards, the college’s top teaching honor, went to Ann Marie Costa, Professor of Theater, and to Karl Plank, Canon Professor of Religion. Each award includes $7,500 for the recipient, and $7,500 more for the recipient to designate to a college cause.

Professor Costa, chair of the theater department, earned a B.F.A. from Boston Conservatory of Music, and an M.F.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. She has taught at Davidson since 1994, and played a major role in the college’s recent renovation of the Cunningham Theatre Center. The citation honoring her declared, “The professor we honor inspires students in countless ways, but never by lowering standards…” It continued, “In the words of an admiring colleague, this professor ‘coaches, stirs, cajoles, and challenges; she slips criticism through the crack under the door, illuminating indirectly rather than blinding with bright light.’”

One alumna testified, “Despite the fact that I graduated from Davidson nearly two years ago, we talk almost every week, and I know that I am not the only graduate doing this.”

Costa teaches acting and directing classes at Davidson, and has directed numerous college productions. Her production of “She Loves Me” won the 2005 “Best College Production” Metrolina Theatre Association Award. She also directs professionally off campus. Some of her favorite credits include “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “Sister Calling My Name” at the Charlotte Repertory Theatre, “Seascapes” at Mill Mountain, and “Mrs. Klein” at Victory Gardens.

She is an active member of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and served on its Governing Council from 1994-2001.

Karl Plank

Professor Plank was an undergraduate at Hanover College, and conducted graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, where he received the Founders Medal from the divinity school. He has taught at Davidson since 1982, and received the college’s Thomas Jefferson Award in 2002.

He was cited as a mesmerizing classroom lecturer and exacting communicator. His citation noted, “This is a professor who collects papers one class period and returns them the next, with even the typographical errors in footnotes marked.”

He was appreciated by nominators for “reading a good passage well in class and linking it to not only other words, but to music, film, visual art and more.” One alumni nominator noted, ““I cannot overestimate the role that he played in nurturing my ability, desire, and courage to think critically about the sources of information around me—newspaper articles, political speeches, films, and the like—and the ways I respond to them.”

In addition to many journal articles, book reviews, and poems, Plank published the 1987 book “Paul and the Irony of Affliction,” and the 1994 book, “Mother of the Wire Fence: Inside and Outside the Holocaust.” He won the Thomas H. Carter Prize for Non-fiction Prose from Shenandoah magazine in 1993.

Plank teaches Biblical studies and Jewish literature and thought, and researches Biblical intertextuality, midrash and hermeneutics, modern Jewish poetry, and monastic spirituality. He frequently presents lectures and leads seminars and discussion groups for church and civic groups, and he plays mandolin.

SERVICE AWARDS TO STUDENTS, EDITOR

The college presented three Algernon Sydney Sullivan Awards for outstanding spiritual qualities unselfishly applied to daily living without regard to recognition.

Town resident David Boraks is founder and editor of the 2 1/2-year-old online newspaper DavidsonNews.net and husband of political science professor Shelley Rigger. He was covering Sunday’s event as the award was announced.

Mr. Boraks was honored for upholding the highest standards of journalism in order to serve the community through modern “green” technology. His citation read, “DavidsonNews.net has quickly become the indispensable source of news and information in town.” One of his nominators said “Davidson News makes me feel more a part of the Town of Davidson than anything else has.” (See Brenda Barger’s special Around Davidson column about the award.)

Kennesia Martin

Two graduating seniors also received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Awards —Kennesia S. Martin of Ringgold, Ga., a political science major with a minor in French, and Carolyn S. Klaasen, a religion major from Malabar, Fla.

Ms. Klaasen was cited for commitments outside the classroom that combine faith, vocation and service. She has been as a Lilly Ministry Fellow, and steadfast volunteer at the Charlotte Urban Ministry Center. She helped plan the weekly college worship and the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. She has worked with youth groups at Davidson College Presbyterian Church, and was a tutor at the Ada Jenkins Community Center.

She is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church USA, and has received a Presbyterian Fellowship to help establish an intentional peace community in upstate New York.

Ms. Martin, a Bonner Community Service Scholar, has become a beloved tutor at Davidson Elementary School. She was cited as someone who “has won the respect and admiration of the teachers, students and parents there through countless hours of giving back. … She has earned the love of the students because she gives so much of herself to them, teaching them the skills they need to succeed without her help.”

Ms. Martin also almost single-handedly organized a fund-raiser to support a school in Africa, worked in the Alumni Office, and was a four year varsity athlete on the track team, including two years as captain. She holds the school record for the triple jump.

Andrew Lovedale, who starred on the Wildcats' basketball team, waves to a friend during Sunday's procession at Belk Arena (David Boraks photo)