Georgia Baptist Convention’s Dr. J. Robert White to be featured speaker at Shorter University’s spring commencement ceremonies April 19, 2011 - Dr. J. Robert White, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Convention, will be the featured speaker at Shorter University’s spring commencement ceremonies on Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7. Three ceremonies are planned including one at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 6 (for traditional program and master’s graduates), one at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 7 (for Bachelor fo Science, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Bachelor of Science in Management and Bachelor of Science in Education graduates from the College of Adult and Professional Programs) and one at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 7 (for Associate of Science graduates from CAPP). All ceremonies will be held in the Winthrop-King Centre on Shorter’s Rome campus. Dr. White has served as the GBC’s executive director since January 1993. The convention has more than 1.3 million members and is the state affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. White came to the GBC from First Baptist Church of Paducah, Ky., where he had served as pastor for 11 years. His earlier ministry includes pastoral leadership of churches in Alabama, Indiana, and Georgia.

He currently is serving on the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force for the SBC and has served as a member of the SBC Empowering Kingdom Growth Task Force and of the SBC Task Force on Cooperation and as a board member of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools, Global Resource Services, the Kentucky Baptist Convention, the Georgia Baptist Convention, and Georgetown College, Ky.

A graduate of Samford University in Alabama, Dr. White received both his Master of Divinity and his Doctor of Ministry degrees from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and is a member of the honorary society Phi Kappa Phi. A prolific writer, Dr. White has published several articles in the following magazines:  Church Administration, Church Training, and The Baptist Program.  He is the author of Healthy Kingdom Churches: Ten Qualities of Healthy Churches, published by Baxter Press in 2002, and published in 2007 by Baxter Press, Words of Life, a collection of his radio devotionals. Dr. White also writes an article for each issue of The Christian Index.

Founded in 1873, Shorter University is a Christian university committed to excellence in education. Since 2003, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Shorter among the South’s best baccalaureate colleges, and The Princeton Review annually includes Shorter on its lists of best value and best Southeastern colleges. The university offers traditional bachelor’s degree programs in 48 major areas as well as undergraduate degree programs for working adults, master’s programs, and online courses and degrees. For more information, visit www.shorter.edu.

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