College President Janet Morgan Riggs to Address Gettysburg Seminary’s Opening Convocation Marking 185th Year
When Gettysburg Seminary opens its 185th academic year Wednesday, September 1, 2010, the lecturer will be Gettysburg College President Janet Morgan Riggs.
The convocation takes place at 11:55am on Wednesday in the Seminary Chapel, 147 Seminary Ridge, and is open to the public. The event welcomes students on the first official day of classes, installs student association officers, introduces new faculty and staff, and engages in the rite of the opening of the academic year.
The lecturer for opening convocation is elected each year by the Seminary faculty and has most often been one of the faculty members or a Washington Theological Consortium colleague. “It is with delight and eagerness that the seminary faculty elected Janet Riggs to address the Seminary community” said Michael Cooper-White, 12th President of the Seminary. The faculty invited Riggs in 2009 and waited a year for her availability on the early September occasion.
Serving as the College’s president since February of 2009, Riggs has served the college in a variety of faculty and administrative roles for 27 years, including two terms as interim provost, and executive assistant under former President Gordon Haaland in 1991-94. Riggs is no stranger to the seminary, recently serving as narrator for a Music, Gettysburg! concert.
After graduating summa cum laude from Gettysburg College in 1977 with a B.A. in psychology and mathematics, Riggs received her M.A. and Ph.D. in social psychology from Princeton University. She began her academic career as an instructor in psychology at Gettysburg College where she was promoted through the ranks to professor of psychology. She has also served as chair of the psychology department.
Recent lecturers have included Dr. Norma Schweitzer Wood, Fr. John Crossan of the Washington Theological Consortium, and the Rev. Dr. William Avery.
Gettysburg Seminary is the oldest Lutheran institution of higher education in the Americas, founded in 1826 on Washington and High Streets in Gettysburg. After founding the seminary, and moving it to the hill now known as Seminary Ridge, Samuel Simon Schmucker initiated the college from the same facility on High Street.