Commencement Speaker Kirk Kelley
Kirk Kelley, PhD, a 28-year member of the St. Ambrose University faculty, will address the graduating class at the 2018 Winter Commencement ceremony on Dec. 15, 2018.
The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. at the RiverCenter in Davenport.
The 260 candidates for St. Ambrose graduate and undergraduate degrees will include the first class of graduates from the Master of Exercise Physiology program.
Kelley is a professor and former chair of the St. Ambrose Biology Department. He was named the Graduate Student Government Association's Advisory Professor of the Year in 2001 and is a three-time nominee for Student Government Association Professor of the Year.
He has served the university in many capacities including multiple terms as a member of the Board of Studies and three terms as board chair.
Kelley received a Bachelor of Science in Biology Education from Kansas State University in 1981, taught high school science for a few years and then earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Anatomy from the University of Kansas Medical Center in 1991.
Kelley joined the St. Ambrose faculty as an assistant professor of biology in 1990, was promoted to associate professor in 1996 and became a full professor in 2001.
His passion for lifelong learning was certified in 2003, when he earned his Bachelor of Arts in French from St. Ambrose. This completed a path he had begun when he took a few classes in the language as a means of becoming conversational while abroad.
"I wanted more," he said. "Eventually, I took every single French class there was."
To complete his degree, Kelley needed a study abroad experience. He did that, alongside other undergraduate French majors, in Annecy, France.
Kelley continues to work alongside undergraduate students today, occasionally singing in the chorale while taking private music lessons, both for credit and for fun. He has enrolled in and completed a pair of Theology courses.
In pursuing his degree in French, Kelley also completed required courses in Theology. That helped him gain empathy for students in his own classroom.
Or maybe empathy isn't the precise right term.
"I always tell my students, ‘Don't complain to me about Gen Ed courses,''' he said. "'I took them, too.' And because I did I clearly see the interconnection between our liberal arts grounding and how that influences all of the rest of our lives. Everything we learn adds a new piece of richness."
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