Commencement to Feature Pointer, Jacksons
About 324 graduates will participate in Commencement on Saturday, May 4, at 9:30 a.m. on Thorrington Field with 147 graduating with honors. About 50 Golden Warriors, who graduated in 1974, will march in the procession to celebrate their 50th reunion. Eleven nursing graduates will participate in the ceremony, two days after their pinning ceremony on Thursday, May 2, at 4 p.m. in Montecito Covenant Church. Commencement, which is closed to the general public, will be livestreamed at westmont.edu/commencement.
Beloved professor emeritus Rick Pointer, who taught American history at Westmont from 1994 until 2020, delivers the address, “What’s Your Story?”
Westmont President Gayle D. Beebe presents the Westmont Medal to Palmer Jr. and Susan Jackson and the Ann Jackson Family Foundation, which has given grants to about 150 Santa Barbara-based nonprofits during three decades.
Graduates Rebecca Li and Eden Lawson will offer in person reflections.
Pointer, the social science division Teacher of the Year in 1997, 2003 and 2014, has written three books, “Protestant Pluralism and the New York Experience,” “Encounters of the Spirit: Native Americans and European Colonial Religion” and “Pacifist Prophet: Papunhank and the Quest for Peace in Early America,” and many articles. With his wife, Barb, a longtime Westmont staff member, he co-led six Europe Semester programs. In 2009, he became the first recipient of the Fletcher Jones Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences, and he served as interim provost from 2009 to 2012. A Houghton College graduate, he earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Johns Hopkins University. A serious and careful scholar, a wise and caring mentor, and an eloquent example of the Christian liberal arts, he made an impact in the classroom and leaves a great and lasting legacy.
Palmer Jackson Jr., a Santa Barbara native who leads marketing teams in high technology companies, has provided leadership on numerous local boards, including those of the Granada Theatre, the Lobero Theatre and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He graduated from Yale University and earned an M.B.A. from UC Berkley. Since 2011, Susan Jackson has served on the Westmont Foundation Board of Directors. She graduated from UC Berkeley and earned a master’s degree from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. Palmer Jackson Sr. established the foundation in honor of his mother and set a standard of philanthropy for the longtime Santa Barbara family.
The Westmont Medal honors those whose lives embody the principles associated with the character of the college. Past recipients include Steven and Denice Fellows, Lindsay and Laurie Parton, Christine and Robert Emmons, Rolf Geyling, David and Anna Grotenhuis, Gerd Jordano, Jonathan Walker, Katherine Wiebe and Ron Werft, to name a few.
The class of 1974 includes Nancy Favor Phinney ’74, who has served as director of college communications for nearly four decades.
The third cohort of Westmont nursing graduates includes Brandi Blackwell, Owen Carlson, Emily Castellanos, Sabrina Cerda, Victor Madrigal, Selene Hernandez, Sarah Ducasse, Reyna Rioux, Tessa Grano, Mary Gray and Jacqueline Hernandez.