Spring Arbor University will host two commencement ceremonies on Saturday, Nov. 21. The morning ceremony begins at 10:30 a.m. with Timothy Tennent, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, serving as keynote speaker. Beginning at 2:30 p.m., the afternoon ceremony will feature keynote speaker Michelle Asha Cooper, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Both ceremonies will be held in the fieldhouse at Spring Arbor University.

Graduates honored in the morning ceremony will include undergraduate and graduate students from the East Region (Dearborn, Jackson, Toledo, Troy), those graduating with a bachelor's in nursing and a master's in business administration; and SAUonline program graduates who are completing a master's in communication; a master's in spiritual formation and leadership; a master's in organizational management and a bachelor's in management and organizational development.

The afternoon ceremony will honor undergraduate and graduate students from the north and Midwest regions (Alpena, Bay City, Petoskey, Traverse City, Gaylord, Battle Creek, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing); MAE graduates; off-campus teacher education bachelor degree graduates; and all campus degree graduates.

For more information about commencement, visit www.arbor.edu/commencement.

Timothy Tennent, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, serves as the keynote speaker for the morning ceremony.

Timothy Tennent became the eighth president of Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, Ky.) in July 2009. Founded in 1923, Asbury Seminary provides holistic ministerial preparation as an interdenominational institution.

Prior to joining Asbury Theological Seminary, Tennent served as professor of world missions and Indian studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. for more than 10 years.

Tennent received his doctorate in non-western Christianity with a focus on Hinduism and Indian Christianity in 1998 at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He also holds a M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell; a Th.M. in ecumenics, with a focus on Islam from Princeton Theological Seminary; and he completed graduate work in linguistics (TESL) at the University of Georgia.

He is one of the first four graduates from a new leadership development program funded by the Lilly Endowment and developed by the Lexington Seminar.

Prior to his work at Gordon-Conwell, Tennent taught missions at Toccoa Falls College in Georgia, where he was honored as teacher of the year in 1995. He also teaches annually at the Luther W. New Jr. Theological College of Dehra Dun, India, where he has served as an adjunct professor since 1989. He has also ministered and taught in China, Thailand, Nigeria and Eastern Europe.

Ordained in the United Methodist Church, Tennent has pastored churches in Georgia, and preached regularly in churches throughout New England and across the country. His publications include articles in various missions journals and Indian publications.

Tennent is the author of several books, including Building Christianity on Indian Foundations, (ISPCK, 2000); Christianity at the Religious Roundtable, (Baker Academic, 2002); and Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church is Influencing the Way We Think About and Discuss Theology, (Zondervan, 2007). He is the co-author of Revitalizing Practice, which focuses on the challenges to theological education in North America (Peter Lang, 2008). Tennent is also the author of a missiology textbook titled Invitation to World Missions: A Missiology for the 21st Century, which will be published in 2010.

Tennent is married to Julie (Myers), a church organist. They have two children, Jonathan, 23, and Bethany, 21.

Michelle Asha Cooper, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, serves as the keynote speaker for the afternoon ceremony.

Michelle Asha Cooper, is president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP). While leading one of the world’s premier research and policy centers, she oversees the organization’s expansive research portfolio and innovative programmatic activities focusing on access and success, accountability, diversity, finance, and global impact. Cooper works with IHEP staff, some of the most respected professionals in the public policy and research fields, to develop new ideas and approaches to help low-income, minority, and other historically underrepresented populations gain access to and achieve success in postsecondary education.

In September 2008, Cooper became the second IHEP president following an extensive six-month nationwide search. She is an emerging and respected education leader who believes ensuring equal educational opportunities, particularly for historically underrepresented groups, is a moral and social imperative. With a career dedicated to and rooted in the postsecondary community, Cooper is committed to identifying new solutions for our nation’s most pressing educational concerns.

Through her role at IHEP, Cooper plans to leverage IHEP’s existing work—including the Alliance for Equity in Education, National Articulation and Transfer Network, Global Policy Fellows Program, and Global Center on Private Financing of Higher Education—to probe additional research questions and identify strategies for persistent problems to college access and success around the world. She is also intent on using these successful initiatives as a springboard to better inform the policymaking process on key educational issues, such as academic preparation and college readiness, college costs and financial aid, accountability, state and institutional financing, and capacity.

Most recently, Cooper served as the deputy director for the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (Advisory Committee) at the U.S. Department of Education. The Advisory Committee is an independent, nonpartisan committee created by Congress to provide advice and counsel to Congress and the Secretary of Education on higher education and student aid policy. In this position, she interacted with policymakers, oversaw all policy research activities, and managed day-to-day operations.

Before joining the Advisory Committee, Cooper held various leadership positions at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Council for Independent Colleges, and King’s College. She is also the 2002 recipient of the National Education Association’s Excellence in the Academy New Scholar Award.

A native of Charleston, S.C., Cooper received her doctorate from the University of Maryland, College Park, a M.P.S. from Cornell University, and a bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston.

An expert on various higher education issues, Cooper is well versed in domestic and international issues related to higher education opportunity and access, with special focus on underserved populations, including: access and success, college readiness and preparation, diversity, federal and state higher education trends and policies, higher education financing options, and tuition and financial aid.