Defiance College welcomes Laura Caldwell as commencement speaker

April 27, 2015

DEFIANCE, Ohio – Two hundred and nineteen graduates will be awarded diplomas during Defiance College’s 2015 commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 3. The ceremony will begin at 12 noon on the Colonnade Green in front of Pilgrim Library.

Highest-ranking seniors of the graduating class are Philip Balla, Rossford; Kelsey Bowling, Sidney; Toni-Ann Boyd, St. Mary, Jamaica; Marissa Bussard, Whitehall; Rachel Davis, Urbana; Dylan Hanefeld, Continental; Alicia Kalik, South Lyon, Mich.; Katherine Knisely, Fayette; Travis Schomaeker, Ottawa; Megan Wertz, Defiance; Tara Wyatt, West Liberty.

Guest speaker for commencement will be Laura Caldwell.

Caldwell is a distinguished scholar in residence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she founded Life After Innocence, a project that aids innocent people who have been wrongfully convicted in order to begin their lives again after exoneration.

She is the author of 13 novels and one non-fiction book, Long Way Home, which details the true story of Jovan Mosley. Mosley was working his way out of a tough Chicago neighborhood and had been accepted to Ohio State University when he was forced to confess to a murder he did not commit. He spent nearly six years in a Cook County holding cell without a trial. Along with criminal defense attorney Catharine O'Daniel, Caldwell fought to prove Mosley's innocence and won his exoneration.

Preceding commencement will be a 10:30 a.m. baccalaureate service in the Weaner Community Center during which Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo, executive minister of the United Church of Christ’s Justice and Witness Ministries, will deliver the sermon.

She is responsible for the church's work on human rights and social, racial and economic justice. She has been active in various UCC settings; as a member of the Commission for Racial Justice and the board of the Coordinating Center for Women; as a member and moderator of Ainsworth UCC in Portland, Ore.; as moderator, vice-moderator, treasurer and search committee chair in the Central Pacific Conference; as a member and committee chair of the Executive Council; and as assistant moderator of General Synod. In 2002, she was a UCC delegate to the World Council of Churches Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1998. She is a former president and vice-president of the Council for Hispanic Ministries and former co-convener of the Council of Racial and Ethnic Ministries.

Defiance College, chartered in 1850, is an independent, liberal arts institution in Northwest Ohio offering more than 40 undergraduate programs of study as well as graduate programs in education and business. Defiance College has received national recognition for its educational experience of service and engagement. The college website is www.defiance.edu.