During his last ceremony as acting president of Pacific Union College, Dr. Malcolm Maxwell conferred degrees on 338 graduates at commencement exercises on Sunday, June 17.

In addition to handing out diplomas, Maxwell relinquished leadership of the college to commencement speaker and incoming president, Dr. Richard Osborn. Maxwell presented Osborn with the keys to the presidential office and commended Osborn for “his natural friendliness, his openness, his sensitivity to others and their needs, his intellectual rigor, and his honesty.”

Osborn comes to PUC with vast experience as a teacher, administrator, writer, researcher, and historian. In passing the keys to his successor, Maxwell ends his eighteen-year term as president, the longest of any previous PUC president. He does not intend to disappear from college life, however, and will return to the classroom following a sabbatical for graduate study. Though Osborn accepted the keys during Sunday’s ceremony, he will officially begin his term as PUC’s 20th president on July 1, 2001.