Senior Noah Sadler ’27 is no stranger to the Joan Perry Brock Center. A manager for the Longwood men’s basketball team since his freshman year, he has long occupied a game-day seat on the home bench of Longwood’s crown jewel basketball arena—albeit in a less-visible, supporting role for the school’s two-time Big South Champion basketball program.
At Longwood’s annual Convocation ceremony this past Thursday, however, Sadler, his fellow members of the Class of 2027 and their collection of uniquely decorated “mortarboard” caps found themselves in the JPB spotlight as the university formally initiated its seniors into their final year of undergraduate education.
The senior class was honored, celebrated and inspired by a lineup of Longwood officials and guest speakers, including Longwood President W. Taylor Reveley IV, Rector of the University’s Board of Visitors Jeffrey Nottingham and Women’s Basketball Head Coach Erika Lang-Montgomery, who served as keynote speaker. Class of 2027 President Julianna Keller ’27 and Vice President Cameron Lowery ’27, also president of the Longwood Student Government Association (SGA), delivered remarks as well.
You definitely have a realization that all the hard work you’ve put in for the past several years is paying off. It’s like everything we’ve done, even since high school, has led to this moment.
Noah Sadler '27
“You definitely have a realization that all the hard work you’ve put in for the past several years is paying off,” Sadler said just before the ceremony began. “It’s like everything we’ve done, even since high school, has led to this moment.”
As a formal academic ceremony that has long taken place on Longwood’s campus, Convocation is to the start of the senior class’s final academic year what Commencement is to its completion. And while convocation ceremonies take place at universities around the country, the Longwood version is steeped in its own decades-old traditions.
Backed by the soundtrack of the Longwood Wind Symphony, Longwood faculty—adorned in their traditional academic regalia—initiate the ceremony by marching toward the convocation stage, passing through a sea of similarly attired seniors amassed on the arena floor. Leading that procession is the Longwood University Mace, carried by the Chief Faculty Marshal each year. Meanwhile, family, friends and classmates of the assembled seniors ring the arena as spectators, giving the event a celebratory feel akin to Longwood basketball game days and equally befitting the jubilant nature of Convocation.
And despite the mixed crowd of seniors and spectators—which exceeded 1,200 attendees in total—Longwood’s soon-to-be graduating class remained easy to spot Thursday, thanks to Convocation’s most visible tradition: capping.
A practice decades old in its own right, Longwood’s capping tradition dictates that a friend, mentor or meaningful individual of each senior decorate their mortarboards, better recognized as the traditional squared graduation cap. Designs feature mementos and photos representative of each senior’s time at Longwood and can often reach impressive, though sometimes structurally questionable, heights. Together, the caps create a sea of towering tributes to the senior class—each a personal representation of a senior’s journey, and together a composite of the individual but connected pathways they’ve all tread throughout their time at Longwood.
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And along with an opportunity to showcase their personalized mortarboards, for many, Convocation served as the debut of the blue and white, Longwood-specific academic robes that in less than eight months will serve as each senior’s graduation attire. Said Olivia Brown ’27, simply putting on those robes for the first time was an experience in itself.
“I’m definitely feeling stressed and excited, but today I felt all of it when I got all dressed up. It feels like we’re getting toward the end, and there’s a lot of mixed emotions with that,” she said.
Added Fenella van der Molen ’27, a senior who also served as Brown’s capper, “I definitely feel that stress too, but getting to have celebrations like this makes it worth it to me. Also, I ordered my robe online, and I’m just happy it fit, because I’m short.”
Along with the nerves, excitement, pride and gravitas elicited by Convocation’s pomp and circumstance, the ceremony is also a rare opportunity for Longwood’s seniors, on the precipice of their final year as undergraduates, to come together as a whole.
“We don’t get a lot of opportunities to come together as just our class,” said Sadler, a health and physical education major who is already on the way to his career as a basketball coach. “Just seeing everyone together, it reminds you how far we’ve all come.”
Gabe Chaos ’27, whose cap featured images of his cats, symbols from several honor societies and pictures of his friends, loved ones and—as he labeled a small group of Longwood friends—his “forever family,” offered a similar perspective.
You look around and you see friends, all the people you’ve met over the past four years, and people from freshman year who maybe you’ve lost touch with, but we’re still all here at the same time. I still feel like we’re all a family. Convocation is about celebrating that.
Gabe Chaos '27
“You look around and you see friends, all the people you’ve met over the past four years, and people from freshman year who maybe you’ve lost touch with, but we’re still all here at the same time,” he said. “Even though I might not know some of them, I still feel like we’re all a family. Convocation is about celebrating that.”
“And,” he said after a brief pause, “having a really cool hat.”
Accentuating the journey of Longwood’s Class of 2027, keynote speaker Lang-Montgomery, who has led the resurgence of Longwood women’s basketball since being named head coach in 2022, delivered a rousing address that detailed her professional journey, the rich history of the university and connected lessons learned on the court to the broader undergraduate experience at Longwood. Among those was the story of N.H. “Cookie” Scott ’72, Longwood’s first Black graduate and namesake of the campus’ N.H. Scott Center, which was officially dedicated earlier that same day.
[N.H. "Cookie" Scott's] legacy reminds us that you don’t just attend an institution, you shape it. You leave it better than you found it.
Erika Lang-Montgomery, women's basketball head coach
“Her legacy reminds us that you don’t just attend an institution, you shape it,” Lang-Montgomery said of Scott. “You leave it better than you found it.”
Lang-Montgomery, whose sons also attend Longwood, including senior Justin Lang ’27, closed her address with five key lessons drawn from her own life that have become central to her position as a coach, educator and mentor: “Number one: Work hard; there are no shortcuts to a life you’re truly proud of. Two: Discover your why and purpose. Three: Be intentional and invest in the relationships you build. Four: Be kind; it costs you nothing, but it has the power to change everything for somebody else. And, finally, have the right stuff. Choose to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.”
Following Lang-Montgomery’s keynote, the Convocation celebration concluded with another Longwood tradition: the announcement of the annual faculty awards. Announced by Reveley and presented by Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Larissa Smith, those honors are selected by award-specific committees made up of faculty and students. Listed below with their 2026 winners, many of the awards were established by or named in honor of prominent figures of Longwood’s history.
Faculty Awards
- Student-Faculty Recognition Award: Dr. Rhonda Brock, Professor of English
- Graduate Faculty Research Award: Dr. Pubali Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Marketing
- Graduate Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award: Dr. Marsha Rutledge, Associate Professor of Counselor Education
- Innovation in Teaching Award: Dr. Alecia Blackwood, Assistant Professor of Education
- Maria Bristow Starke Faculty Excellence Award: Dr. Karla Collins, Professor of School Librarianship
- Maude Glen Raiford Award: Dr. Hannan Sadjady Naeeni, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management
- Susan H. May Scholarship Award: Dr. Haley Woznyi, Associate Professor of Management
- William David Stuart Leadership and Service Award: Dr. Eric Hodges, Associate Professor of Political Science
- Assistant Professor Award of Excellence: Dr. Elise Green, Associate Professor of English and Writing
- Murray and Cora Simpson Distinguished Professorship Award: Dr. Meg Michelsen, Associate Professor of Marketing