Date: May 14, 2026
The 203rd Commencement at Virginia Theological Seminary was everything I prayed it would be: orderly, meaningful, and only slightly chaotic in the ways that only I knew about.
As someone just past their first year at VTS, I will be the first to admit that I needed reinforcements, and our student workers showed up as exactly that. They laughed at my jokes at the right moments (and graciously pretended those moments were more frequent than they were), and they executed with a level of detail that would have taken me twice as long to manage alone.
Evan Vernon was nothing short of a rockstar. He managed regalia logistics with precision and made sure our commencement speaker felt cared for from the moment he arrived. Caleb Nelson Amaker in superb fashion, owned the welcome center and ushering operation with confidence and composure, which is particularly impressive when you consider how many directions people were moving at once. Ericca Cavender Caldwell took on parking and golf cart coordination, which is arguably the most thankless assignment in event logistics, and she showed up for it. Abigail Merk, our resident songbird, kept every detail organized and on track, which is exactly the kind of quiet excellence that holds an event together.
None of this happens without the vision and leadership of Dr. Melody Knowles and Dean Ian Markham, whose commitment to excellence set the standard for everything that followed. It also does not happen without the collective effort of the entire VTS staff. Together, we managed 104 tasks across almost every institutional department. One hundred and four, and we did not drop a single one.
It was a good day.
Quinn Harkless
Operations Manager, Academic Affairs & Student Life