Academic Year Begins with Traditional Matriculation Ceremony as WCC Welcomes Newest Students
On the afternoon of Sunday, August 25th, the fifty-four men and women of Wyoming Catholic College’s Class of 2023 became the newest official members of the College community. Representing twenty-four states and the Republic of Ireland, they began their four-year educational adventure by participating in the annual Convocation Mass and Matriculation Ceremony.
The Mass was celebrated by Bishop Steven Biegler, ordinary of the Diocese of Cheyenne, who exhorted the assembled students (and especially the Freshmen class) to embrace the role of discipleship in both their academic and spiritual lives. “The formation of the whole person that Catholic education seeks—body and mind, heart and soul, faith and reason,” he told them, “seeks to form disciples who think and speak and act like Christ.” Fittingly, the College’s professors then made their annual Profession of Faith, and the Bishop administered the Oath of Fidelity to the three newest members of the faculty. (The Oath is required of all Wyoming Catholic College teachers.)
Later that afternoon, after a buffet lunch and the annual Wyoming Catholic College Community portrait on the steps of Holy Rosary, the Freshmen signed their names in the official Student Register and embarked on their four-year educational adventure. In his Matriculation remarks, President Glenn Arbery reminded these young men and women that “our call is to seek a perspective above the pool of our own consciousness and our own possibilities; to ask for the grace that lifts us beyond ourselves.” He told them that “on this day, you have already begun this work of going beyond yourself—a work that is twofold and paradoxical—both an acceptance of limitations, and a recognition of new possibilities.”
Professor Kyle Washut, the College’s Acting Dean, spoke to the assembly about the meaning of the Matriculation ceremony. “In signing this book,” he said, “you are making a public act of trust. You are announcing your intention to trust the Wyoming Catholic College community with your formation over the next four years. We are aware of the solemn duty imposed on us when you give us that trust, and we will honor it.”
