Baccalaureate (address)

A baccalaureate service (or, baccalaureate Mass in the case of institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church and its religious institutes) is a celebration that honors a graduating senior class from a college or high school or eighth grade. The event is typically a Christianity-based interdenominational service, though it may also be of a strictly Catholic nature.

The service is held within a few days of the graduation and/or commencement ceremony, perhaps on the Sunday before, the day preceding, or immediately preceding the graduation. Speakers selected tend to be community leaders, faculty members, students, or local religious leaders, and may be elected by the graduating class. Speeches are often intermixed with musical performances, drama, and worship. Baccalaureate addresses can range in length from under half an hour to as long as four hours.

A claim much repeated is that "the baccalaureate service is believed to have originated at the University of Oxford in 1432 when each bachelor was required to deliver a sermon in Latin as part of his academic requirements." However, it was "examinatory sermons" that were required of all Oxford bachelors before their "inception" or commencement; these were mentioned in a 1311 statute. The American baccalaureate service is an outgrowth of the bacclaureate sermon. The earliest known in America is at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1760.

Because of United States Supreme Court rulings regarding the separation of church and state, baccalaureate services are not official, school-sponsored events at American public schools. However, many have student-initiated services at private facilities not paid for with government funds, and as such are fully permitted by law. Until recent years, school-sponsored baccalaureate services were common in American public schools, on school grounds.

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