Each year, Ripon's Commencement is focused on a theme. This year's theme is "Health & Service."

Service is a core value of Ripon College. We believe that service within and beyond the campus is necessary because such commitments enable effective governance, encourage community engagement and create leadership opportunities. Engaging in service is a way of putting our mission into action; it helps to prepare students for lives of productive, socially responsible citizenship.

Service to others, to our communities and to our society supports the common good and advances our shared welfare. Improving human health and well-being is a particularly noble form of service. Doing so can require that we sacrifice some of our own comfort in order to assist those who are in peril at home and around the world. It can challenge us emotionally and intellectually and force us to see beyond our needs, to recognize our privileges and to embrace the plight of those who are most needy because their health is at greatest risk.

Life and work that benefit our fellow men and women -- here and abroad -- by improving their health constitute a form of service with a value that is extensive, expansive and, perhaps ultimately, immeasurable.