Shorter College to hold commencement May 8; Phyllis Tickle will be keynote speaker  

April 22, 2010 - Phyllis Tickle, author and founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly, will be the featured speaker at Shorter College’s May 8 spring commencement ceremonies. Two ceremonies are planned, one at 10 a.m. and one at 2 p.m.; both will be held inside the college’s Winthrop-King Centre.

Tickle, an alumna of Shorter College, is known as an authority on religion in America and is a much sought after lecturer on the subject. In addition to lectures and numerous essays, articles and interviews, Tickle is the author of more than two dozen books dealing with religion and spirituality. Her most recent book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why (Baker Publishing), has been widely hailed as “extraordinary.” It has its own website at http://www.thegreatemergence.com/. Tickle, who was with Publishers Weekly until her retirement in 2004, began her career as a college teacher and, for almost 10 years, served as academic dean to the Memphis College of Art before entering full time into writing and publishing. In September 1996, she received the Mays Award, one of the book industry's most prestigious awards for lifetime achievement in writing and publishing and specifically in recognition of her work in gaining mainstream media coverage of religion publishing.

In 2004, she received the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Berkeley School of Divinity at Yale University. In 2007, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Christy Awards "in gratitude for a lifetime as an advocate for fiction written to the glory of God."
Tickle is currently a senior fellow of Cathedral College of the Washington National Cathedral. A founding member of The Canterbury Roundtable, she serves now, as she has in the past, on a number of advisory and corporate boards. She is the mother of seven children and, with her physician-husband, makes her home on a small farm in Lucy, Tenn.

Founded in 1873, Shorter College is a Christian college committed to excellence in education. Since 2003, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Shorter among the South’s best baccalaureate colleges. The college offers traditional bachelor’s degrees in 48 major areas as well as undergraduate degree programs for working adults, the Master of Business Administration, the Master of Education and the Master of Arts in Leadership. Online courses are also available. Shorter will transition to university status June 1, 2010. For more information, visit www.shorter.edu.

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