No, students will not receive a refund if they do not participate in Commencement. Graduation and Commencement are separate. Graduation is completing your requirements, receiving your diploma, and having your degree posted on your transcript. Commencement is the ceremony where you walk across the stage to celebrate your achievements.

The graduation fee funds many aspects of graduation, including administrative costs, graduates’ diplomas, mailing, etc. This fee is paid by all students whether or not they participate in the Commencement ceremony. (See Simpson University Catalog).

Diplomas are mailed 8-10 weeks after the conferral date. The conferral date is the date listed on your transcript as the date your degree was received.

Degrees will not be posted until all final grades are in after the conferral date. It takes 1-2 weeks to post all degrees. Please be sure you do not have any outstanding balances on your account as this may cause your degree to be delayed. If you want proof of your degree before it’s posted or before you receive your diploma, please complete the Enrollment Verification form and send it back to the Registrar’s Office or registrar@simpsonu.edu.

If you have outstanding courses (for example, you are finishing credits at Shasta College and their term ends after ours) you will need to fill out the Graduation Exception Petition form and return this to the Registrar’s Office. If approved, this allows you to still walk in the SP25 Commencement and still have your degree posted for the SP25 term, even though you are technically finishing after the term ends.

Transcripts take time; please allow 2 weeks for processing. To request a transcript, please fill out the Transcript Request Form and return to registrar@simpsonu.edu.

You may be thinking, “I know that I am getting a Baccalaureate degree, but what pray tell, is a Baccalaureate ceremony?” Good on you, as your inquisitive nature shows that we have taught you well. To answer your question the Baccalaureate Ceremony is one of the high holy days on the collegiate calendar that traces its origins back to Oxford University where it is said to have originated in 1432 (60 years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue!).

Originally, the services were held the Sunday before commencement and the graduates were required to deliver a sermon in Latin. It would be another 300 years before the tradition apparently took root in America, with the first Baccalaureate Ceremony allegedly being held at the College of New Jersey (better known as Princeton) in 1760.

Given the Christian origins of the event and focus on sermons and worship, it is likely that other institutions held these ceremonies earlier than this, especially since almost without exception the institutions of higher education that were first established in America were primarily intended to train individuals for the ministry.

In any event, the Baccalaureate service throughout the centuries has been primarily intended as an occasion of prayerful reflection and the expression of gratitude for the privilege of learning and the vocation of service.

As such, Simpson’s Baccalaureate service sets the academic accomplishments which we will honor at Commencement into the frame of the eternal and unfinished quest for godly wisdom. It is built upon the greatest commandment to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength and its close companion command, to love your neighbor as yourself.

The ritual acts of praise, reflection, and remembrance elicited through prayer, praise, and prose, conspire to make us mindful that knowledge is not a destination, but rather a path leading toward the quality of community for which we continue to yearn as we seek to see God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

In this common spirit, in this remarkable company, in service to this noble goal, we will gather on [the eve of Commencement] to remember, to rejoice, and to give thanks.