The Divinity Student Council and the Divinity School Office of Student Life will hold a field day and a farewell celebration for Donna Banks, director of Student Life, during Reading Week (April 23-27).

The Divinity School community including students, faculty, and staff are invited to the free event, which will be the last community dinner of the semester and will include games.

Banks will be leaving the Divinity School early this summer to become a district superintendent in the United Methodist Church.

Duke University will hold its 60th Commencement Ceremony featuring a commencement address delivered by Fareed Zakaria, a journalist, author, and foreign policy advisor. The procession of students will begin at 9:30 a.m. 

Details

Duke Divinity School will celebrate its 86th Baccalaureate Service with Sam Wells, dean of Duke Chapel and research professor of Christian ethics at the school, preaching.

This 90-minute service of worship includes the traditional ritual of hooding for degree recipients. The event is free and open to the public. Duke Divinity seniors should meet in Goodson Chapel at 5:30 p.m.

The Baccalaureate service will be webcast live on the Duke Chapel webcast page and on Duke's Ustream channel.

Duke Divinity School will hold its 86th Closing Convocation worship service with William C. Turner Jr., associate professor of the practice of homiletics at the school, preaching. Dean Richard B. Hays will be the celebrant at the Service of the Word and Table that marks the end of the academic year and honors graduating seniors.

Duke Divinity School will hold its Senior Cross Service with Jo Bailey Wells, associate professor of the practice of Christian ministry and bible and also director of Anglican Studies at the school, preaching. The community service honors upcoming graduates, who will each be presented with a glass cross.

Peter Cole, the author of a new book, "The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition," will be a guest lecturer of the Duke Center for Jewish Studies. His collection presents for the first time in English a substantial body of poetry that emerges directly from the sublime and often startling world of Jewish mysticism. He provides renderings of work composed on three continents over a 1,500-year period.

The free event is open to the public.