OLIVET, Mich. Olivet College students, faculty and staff will commemorate the colleges 160th year during Founders Day activities Wednesday, Feb. 18.

Events include:

A wreath laying ceremony beginning at 11:15 a.m. in the Kirk Center lobby; participants will then proceed to the gravesite of Father John J. Shipherd, the founder of Olivet, for prayer and reflection.

President Don Tuski, Ph.D., will speak at 1:30 p.m. in the Olivet Congregational Church.

Following Tuski, Donna L. Collier-Turner, a teacher in the Battle Creek Public School District, will perform a reenactment of the life of Sojourner Truth, a former slave and womens rights activist.

A reception will immediately follow the Founders Day program from 3 to 6 p.m. in Dole Halls Klock Commons.

An historical collage including Olivet yearbooks, pictures and society programs is on display through Friday, Feb. 27 in the colleges Mott Academic Center.

Collier-Turner has done extensive research into the life of Truth. She is a designated Educational Scholar for the Sojourner Truth Institute and is co-author of a curriculum written about Truths life. The Board of the Sojourner Truth Institute in Battle Creek designated Collier-Turner as its first Resident Truth. She has performed as Truth at the 1998 unveiling of the Sojourner Truth Marquette in Battle Creek, at several of the Worlds Longest Breakfast Tables in the Discovery Theatre, and at the 1998, 1999 and 2000 Battle Creek African-American Heritage Summer Bus Tours and Strawberry Festivals.

Truth moved to Battle Creek in 1867, where she died in 1883 following many years of traveling the nation to speak about abolitionism and womens rights.

For more information, call (269) 749-7631.

« Back