Commencement 2026
Join us for Commencement 2026!
Friday, May 15, 2026 | 10:00 AM MT
St. Andrew United Methodist Church
9203 S University Blvd.
Highlands Ranch 80126
Event Details:
Join Iliff School of Theology as we celebrate the 121st graduating class with Commencement speaker Robert Allen Warrior. Commencement will be held at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Highlands Ranch. The program will begin at 10:00 AM and last until approximately 12:00 PM.
About Robert Allen Warrior
Robert Warrior is Hall Distingushed Professor of American literature and culture at the University of Kanas. An enrolled member of the Osage Nation, he is the author of The People and the Word: Reading Native Nonfiction, co-author of American Indian Literary Nationalism. part of the Native Critics Collective that published Reasoning Together, co-author of Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee (with Paul Chaat Smith) and Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions. He has recently published an edited volume,The World of Indigenous North America(Routledge), edits the NAIS (the journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association), and edits a book series, Indigenous Americas for the University of Minnesota Press.
Warrior has served the ASA in numerous roles, including as a member of the elected National Council and its Executive Committee (2009-12), two times as a co-chair of the Program Committee (2007-8, 2014-15), and as a member of the Program Committee. Warrior was a member of the six-member steering committee and then acting council that founded the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. In 2010, he was elected NAISA’s founding president and is now (with Jean O’Brien) serving as founding co-editor of NAISA’s scholarly journal. He holds degrees from Union Theological Seminary (Ph.D., Systematic Theology), Yale University (M.A., Religion), and Pepperdine University (B.A. summa cum laude, Speech Communication). He has also served as an appointed official in the Osage Nation government and is a member of the committee responsible for maintaining the Osage ceremonial in-losh-ka dance in the Grayhorse district. Along with his scholarly work, he has worked on numerous film projects, including the final episode of WGBH-Boston’s “We Shall Remain,’ which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and the History Channel’s “America: The Story of Us.”
His academic and journalistic writing has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including American Quarterly, PMLA, MLA’s Profession, Interventions, News from Indian Country, Indian Country Today Media Network,Village Voice, UTNE Reader, and High Times. In 2011, The People and the Word and he and two coauthors of American Indian Literary Nationalismwere the inaugural recipients of the Beatrice Medicine Award for Scholarly Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium and Warrior has also received awards from the Gustavus Myers Foundation, the Native American Journalists Association, the Church Press Association, and others. Professor Warrior has lectured in a wide variety of places, including Lebanon, Guatemala, Mexico, France, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Canada.
About the Iliff School of Theology:
Iliff is a theological graduate school founded in 1893 that nurtures passion, cultivates compassion, and encourages social and ecological justice around the world.
At Iliff, we honor spiritual traditions that recognize the inherent dignity of all people. The diverse identities of our students, faculty and staff enrich the classroom and broaden the scope of our scholarship. Students from a range of religious, spiritual, and secular backgrounds thrive at Iliff, working across lines of difference to advocate freedom.
Commencement Countdown
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For media inquiries, please contact the Director of Marketing and PR at communiations@iliff.edu.