Commencement 2024
Schedule of Events
May 17-18, 2024
Details of these activities and events may change by May 18. An up-to-date final schedule, noting time changes and locations, will be available upon your arrival on campus. Please be sure to pick one up at the Information Desk in Case Center's commons area, second floor, on Friday, May 17, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Your senior will also receive a copy.
Friday, May 17
Periclean Scholar Awards Ceremony followed by Recognition for Graduating Honors Forum Seniors
Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall
Held annually, the Periclean Scholar Awards competition recognizes excellence by awarding up to four prizes to seniors for distinguished projects in all disciplines. Periclean Scholar Awards recipients share the honor of this achievement at a ceremonial presentation of the project open to the College community. Following these presentations, Honors Forum members who are graduating seniors will receive their recognition medals. A reception will follow to celebrate graduating HF seniors and Periclean Scholar Awards recipients.
For additional information on Periclean Honors Forum, please contact Flagg Taylor.
At The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery
State Farm Mezzanine Gallery
October 21, 2023 - September 7, 2025
Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves is the fifth exhibition in a series that invites an artist to create a museum community space devoted to art, conversation, and contemplation. Yvette Molina presents new art and designs in this site-specific and evolving installation centered around the four elements—earth, air, water, fire—and a fifth constituent, the cosmos. In focusing on these ancient, fundamental substances, Molina reminds us that humans, plants, and all earthly beings are made of star stuff and survive by the elements. She encourages us to consider care as entangled within circles of life—care for one another, whether human or non-human, is care for ourselves and for all. Throughout the exhibition’s two years, Molina is inviting other artists to present their work in the space, bringing together multiple perspectives, styles, and materials and regularly re-energizing the installation’s balance between comfort and provocation.
Malloy Wing
February 3, 2024 - May 19, 2024
London-based artist Isaac Julien CBE RA is a multimedia filmmaker and photographer known for bringing history to life with a nuanced and thought-provoking visual language that critically addresses the politics of race and gender. His film installation Lessons of the Hour features actor Ray Fearon in the role of Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century abolitionist, writer, and freed slave. Open-ended narrative vignettes set in Washiongton, D.C., London, and Edinburgh portray Douglass with various influential women of his time - including Susan B. Anthony and Ottilie Assing - dramatizing ideas of racial and gender equality. Julien's work reiterates Douglass's belief in the importance and power of photography and picture-making in advocating for social justice. Julien conjures Douglass's role in the abolitionist movement, powerfully emphasizing its relevance to contemporary social justice struggles. Lessons of the Hour features ten screens of varying dimensions hung salon-style - referencing a popular ninteenth-century method of arranging a group of images.
Elevator
February 10, 2024 - May 19, 2024
To leave, to live, then to return once again. How do we make sense of the newly unfamiliar?
Expectations, hesitations, and new contemplations unfurl and transform prior to, during,
and upon diasporic people’s returns to their homelands after forced and/or voluntary
migration. Alone, only in flesh is a site-specific, collaborative meditation on three diasporic artists’ experiences
in and between lands and waters, and how those experiences shape untranslatable connections
to home and identity. In this exhibition, Antonius-TĂn Bui, Theresa-Xuan Bui, and
MIZU meld the language of altars—spaces of presence, transcendence, and transmission—with
the liminality of the shifting elevator and welcome all to commune with the unknown.
Through a combination of spoken word poetry, experimental cello, traditional Vietnamese áo dà i (garments), Southeast Asian home goods, and Asian snacks, the installation engages
all five senses—aural, visual, haptic, olfactory, and gustatory. Opening on Lunar
New Year and stretching across several significant dates, including the anniversary
of the Fall of Saigon, this installation will continually evolve. The artists will
return to Alone, only in flesh after visits to Vietnam and Japan and make new offerings reflecting their ever-changing
relationships to their motherlands. In this way, the expanding exhibition invites
visitors to immerse themselves in it each time anew. Alone, only in flesh is anchored by the song “Sunrise” by Gus Dapperton, featuring the award-winning Vietnamese
American poet and novelist Ocean Vuong.
Senior Thesis Art Exhibit
Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery
May 13–18, 2024
This exhibit showcases outstanding works in all media by senior studio-art majors.
for more information on these exhibitions.
Main Gym, Williamson Sports Center
By invitation only.
Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall
Induction ceremony for new members. Faculty, staff, students, and their families are welcome to attend. Reception follows.
Case Center Plaza (Rain plan - The Spa, Case Center)
A brief ceremony for seniors, families, and friends to announce the total raised by the senior 2024 class, and dedicate the Class of 2024 brick pathway, given by the families of the Class of 2024 in honor of their graduating seniors. Each brick is engraved with the name of the student whose families participate in the Class of 2024 Senior Family Project.
Visit the Class of 2024 Parent and Family Giving page for more information.
President's Reception
Scribner House, 791 North Broadway (Rain plan-Murray-Aikins Dining Hall, first floor)
President Marc C. Conner and Barbara Reyes-Conner greet seniors, their guests, trustees,
faculty and staff at their home, historic Scribner House
Saturday, May 18
Murray-Aikins Dining Hall, Skidmore College Campus
Families, friends, and seniors are welcome as guests of the College.
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Spa State Park
Seniors arrive, pick up diplomas, and form processional.
Audience members are asked to be seated by this time.
113th Commencement Exercises
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Spa State Park
Commencement Reception
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Spa State Park
Come celebrate! Please join graduates, families, friends, faculty, and staff for
a celebratory reception following the Commencement Ceremony to acknowledge and celebrate
the wonderful accomplishments of Skidmore College's Class of 2024.
The Skidmore Shop will be open Friday, 9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. with 15% off on branded merchandise.
On Saturday, in addition to their campus store hours of 1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., the Skidmore Shop will have a pop-up location at Commencement. Great new merchandise and Skidmore swag will be available, including diploma frames, hats, hoodies, t-shirts, and branded other gifts items for the whole family. Join us in celebrating and commemorating your time at Skidmore College in style and with pride.
Skidmore's Commencement Exercises are held at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, located in the Saratoga Spa State Park, several miles from campus. The SPAC amphitheater is covered but not enclosed. This map will show parking, facilities, and points of interests.