Standing ovation: Commencement for the classes of 2020 and 2021

UNCSA graduates passed second base and into their lives as professional artists at the school’s first-ever commencement in a ballpark on Saturday, May 22 at Truist Stadium, home of the Winston-Salem Dash. After traditional in-person ceremonies were canceled due to the pandemic last year, UNCSA invited the university class of 2020 to join this year’s ceremony. The ballpark provided a large outdoor venue that allowed for social distancing.

Stephen McKinley Henderson, a 1972 graduate of the UNCSA School of Drama who has worked on stages throughout the United States, abroad, on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in television and ﬁlm, spoke at both high school and university ceremonies, delivering remarks that touched on the power of creative expression in these fractured times.

“Our purpose as artists is not to lift ourselves. It is to lift the art and thereby lift us all,” the celebrated actor and alumnus told UNCSA graduates. “I beg you young artists to accept your role as alchemists of empathy, sorcerers of empathy, magicians of empathy.”

“There is a great civility to citizens gathering in museums, concert halls, opera houses and theaters. Gathering not knowing what political or religious afﬁliation the person standing or seated next to them might have — each experiencing creative expressions through their own personal lens to the same performance of ﬁne art in the same moment,” he said.

“At a live performance, joyous laughter and unexpected tears unite an audience across all racial, cultural and gender divisions,” continued the Tony Award-nominated actor, who has appeared in ﬁve ﬁlms that have been nominated for Academy Awards for best picture.

Henderson said he agreed to speak at Commencement because of a principle instilled in him as a student at the School of the Arts: “the secular divinity of the arts: the service dimension.

“In the 1970s the America I was living in seemed hostile toward me. I came to this campus and found a greater America than I was living in,” he said. “That generosity and hospitality moved from friendship to kinship, and I found family in every ensemble I was a part of.”

Henderson told graduates, “You are the essential workers whose workplace has been closed for a dangerous length of time. Our country needs your service, just as this state and this nation need this secular monastery, UNCSA, of which you are now honored alumni.”

You are the essential workers whose workplace has been closed for a dangerous length of time. Our country needs your service, just as this state and this nation need this secular monastery, UNCSA, of which you are now honored alumni.
2021 Commencement Speaker Stephen McKinley Henderson

Chancellor Brian Cole, who presided over both high school and university commencement ceremonies, and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Patrick J. Sims presented Henderson with an honorary doctorate of performing arts during the university commencement ceremony.

by Lauren Whitaker

This article appeared in the 2021 issue of Scene.
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July 20, 2021