Robert Dewey

Robert Dewey, dean of Stetson Chapel at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, pointed out that about ten years ago many seniors registered their preference not to have the service.Faculty and administration resisted the abandonment of the tradition, and the service limped along for several years in a quasi-religious vein.But a half-dozen years ago the occasion was reasserted as "unapologetically a service of worship," and attendance has been strong."It is not required," the dean says, "but it is always packed."

From all around the country -- from Brown and Yale in the east to Occidental and Puget Sound on the opposite coast -- come reports of full houses at baccalaureate.At Emory, in Atlanta, invitations were limited to undergraduate seniors and their families for the first time last spring, and the 1,200-seat campus church was filled to capacity.

- Robert Dewey, Dean of the Chapel, Kalamazoo College, 1986

While it's been many years since (now emeritus) Dean Dewey first spoke those words on that chilly December evening, they […]