Opening Convocation celebrates Class of 2027 as seniors begin final undergraduate year
Presbyterian College opened its 147th academic year Aug. 25 with a celebration of community, calling and the Class of 2027, whose members marked the beginning of their senior year by wearing academic regalia and donning their graduation caps for the first time.
The College of Arts and Sciences Opening Convocation in Belk Auditorium welcomed students and faculty back for a new year while placing special emphasis on the seniors who are beginning the final chapter of their undergraduate experience.
President Dr. Anita Gustafson welcomed the PC community and reminded students that their time at the college is about more than completing coursework or preparing for a profession. It is an opportunity to live, learn, and grow within a community shaped by shared values and a commitment to service.
“This place, these gathered people, this community exists for something beyond ourselves,” Gustafson said.
Rooted in PC’s church-related identity, she said, the college seeks to prepare students to become leaders who will challenge and change the world while serving the greater good. She described PC as a “community of calling,” where academic study and career preparation are important parts of a larger process of discovering how individual talents and convictions can serve others.
Gustafson also pointed to honesty, trust and respect as qualities that unite the PC community.
“It’s what we refer to as being True Blue,” she said, “and it makes this a very special place.”
‘A living bridge’
Provost and vice president of academic affairs Dr. Erin McAdams recognized PC’s faculty for their commitment to both scholarship and teaching, calling them “the heartbeat of this institution.”
“You do not simply transfer information,” McAdams said. “You are igniting minds, challenging assumptions, and shepherding our students into becoming critical thinkers and compassionate leaders.”
McAdams also addressed students at each stage of their PC experience.
She noted that members of the Class of 2030 will graduate during Presbyterian College’s 150th anniversary year and encouraged them to approach their first year with intellectual courage, exploring academic disciplines and taking advantage of opportunities throughout campus life.
Sophomores and juniors, she said, are at important points of reflection and growth and should remain actively engaged in building relationships with faculty, staff and fellow students.
For the Class of 2027, however, Opening Convocation carried particular significance.
McAdams called the seniors “the living bridge between our institution’s history and its immediate future.”
As they wore their academic gowns for the first time, she reminded them that they were entering a year of both culmination and transition — completing the work they began as first-year students while preparing for whatever follows graduation.
“You are not only students but emerging leaders,” McAdams told them, encouraging the class to lead with integrity, uphold PC’s Honor Code and guide younger students through their example.
A Year Focused on Vocation and Calling
The Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon, Lassiter Chaplain and dean of spiritual life, introduced the convocation’s featured speaker, the Hon. Kelly Byers ’07, and placed her visit within a larger emphasis PC will explore throughout the academic year.
Wilcoxon said students will hear the words “vocation” and “calling” frequently during the year as the college participates in programming supported by a grant from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE).
Byers, a 2007 PC graduate, has built a career centered on nonprofit work, philanthropy, and community service. She is deputy executive director of Trees Upstate and has served for more than a decade on Travelers Rest City Council.
Her own PC experience also reflected that commitment to engagement. As a student, she participated in Student Volunteer Services, student government, environmental and religious organizations and orientation programs.
Returning to campus, Byers used her own winding professional and personal journey to challenge one of the most common assumptions about vocation: that everyone is supposed to discover a single, clearly defined calling and follow it for life.
Instead, she told students, a meaningful life often develops through unexpected opportunities, changed plans, difficult choices and repeated discernment.
Your calling is not what you do for a paycheck. It is how you live out your commitment to a purpose.”
The Hon. Kelly Byers ’07, Deputy Executive Director, Trees Upstate
‘You will have many’
Byers recalled arriving at PC without a settled academic direction after once believing she would become a special education teacher. Later experiences drew her toward international work, agriculture, social justice, nonprofit service, and eventually local government.
Some opportunities seemed at first to represent the destination she had been seeking. Others appeared simply because they were the most sensible next step.
Looking back, Byers said the distinction between a perfectly defined calling and an unexpected opportunity mattered less than her willingness to respond.
“What mattered was that I picked up the call,” she said.
Her experiences ultimately changed the way she understood vocation.
“You will not have just one calling in your life,” Byers told students. “You will have many.”
Those callings, she said, can stretch across careers, relationships, civic responsibilities, hobbies and personal choices.
“Your calling is not what you do for a paycheck,” she said. “It is how you live out your commitment to a purpose.”
College, she added, should not be viewed as four years in which students must discover one permanent answer about the rest of their lives. Instead, it can prepare them for “a life of continuous discernment.”
‘Live the questions’
Byers encouraged students to use their years at PC as a laboratory for discovering what gives their lives meaning.
“Study abroad,” she said. “Visit a professor who challenges you. Shadow someone in a profession that interests you. Complete an internship. Volunteer.
“Try everything while you’re here.”
Just as important, she told students, is learning what does not fit. Discovering that a particular career, interest, or opportunity does not align with one’s values can be as valuable as finding something that does.
She urged students not to wait until after graduation to experiment with an interest when college provides an environment where the cost of discovering something is not the right fit remains relatively low.
Byers also encouraged students to talk with alumni, remain curious and learn to become comfortable with questions that may not have immediate answers.
“Live the questions,” she said.
Discernment, she added, sometimes requires creating quiet in a world filled with constant noise. She encouraged students to make room for reflection, journal about the experiences that bring them joy and energy, seek advice from trusted people and take the long view when making significant decisions.
“The real test of life,” she said, “is learning how to gracefully say no to a wonderful opportunity so that you can say yes to your true calling.”
A First Step Toward Commencement
Convocation concluded by returning the focus to the Class of 2027.
Gustafson reminded seniors that their final year will include traditions marking their progression toward graduation. They had already entered the ceremony accompanied by bagpipe music. Now they would participate in another tradition.
She asked the seniors to stand and place their graduation caps on their heads with their tassels positioned to the right.
“The donning of your caps, with your tassel in place on the right, symbolizes that although you are still a student at Presbyterian College, you are starting your journey toward commencement,” Gustafson said.
With that, the Class of 2027 officially began its final undergraduate year — one that will culminate with the tassels moving to the other side and, as the messages of Opening Convocation reminded them, the beginning of another journey whose destination does not have to be completely known yet.
