Following a long-awaited and joyful ceremony celebrating the Class of 2020 on April 24, Hampden-Sydney College is now gearing up for its next commencement on May 8, when the Class of 2021 will join the storied Hampden-Sydney alumni network.
Given guidelines established by the governor, commencement ceremony attendance will be limited to registered guests of the members of the Class of 2021. All attendees will be expected to wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines set forth by the CDC and the Commonwealth of Virginia. For registered friends and family attending the ceremony, please note that commencement will be held on the front lawn of Venable Hall. Those not attending in person will be able to watch the ceremony via livestream. Commencement will begin at 10am.
Delivering the commencement address will be alumnus Chris Stirewalt ’97, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on American politics, voting trends, public opinion, and the media. He is also a contributing editor and weekly columnist for The Dispatch. Prior to joining AEI, Mr. Stirewalt was the political editor of Fox News Channel, where he helped coordinate political coverage across the network and specialized in on-air analysis of polls and voting trends.
Before joining Fox News, Mr. Stirewalt served as political editor of the Washington Examiner, where he wrote a twice-weekly column and led political coverage for the newspaper. He also served as political editor of the Charleston Daily Mail and West Virginia Media. Mr. Stirewalt began his career at the Wheeling Intelligencer in West Virginia.
A well-known political commentator, Mr. Stirewalt wrote about his personal experience of the 2020 election in the Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of Every Man a King: A Short, Colorful History of American Populists in which he looks at American populism through the history of seven famous populists.