Biola celebrated the accomplishments of 997 graduates, including five students from Biola's Kyiv program, during the Spring 2011 Commencement Ceremonies on May 27 and 28. Libby Little served as keynote speaker, along with special music performances by Biola's talented ensembles.

On Friday, May 27 and Saturday, May 28 nearly 10,000 guests attended Biola University's commencement events to celebrate the spring graduating class of 2011. With 997 students receiving their diploma throughout the weekend, Biola once again conferred degrees upon one of its largest graduating classes.

Libby Little served as the Commencement speaker for the Friday graduate and BOLD programs ceremony, as well as Saturday's undergraduate ceremony. Libby and her late husband, optometrist Dr. Tom Little, served in Afghanistan for over 30 years. Together they provided medical care for and shared the love of Christ with the villagers of rural Afghanistan. In August 2010, Tom and his medical team of 10 were ambushed on their journey back to Kabul and were killed after conducting a two week mobile clinic to remote valleys of Nuristan.

Libby shared the story of her husband’s death at the 2010 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa. On Feb. 15, 2011, President Obama posthumously awarded Tom with the 2010 Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, which Libby accepted on his behalf. In the ceremony, President Obama said that Dr. Little was “… a humanitarian in the truest sense of the word; a man who not only dedicated his life to others, but who lived that lesson of Scripture: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’”

In addition to the thousands of guests on Biola's campus, a live internet stream of the ceremony reached over 1,000 additional guests from as far away as Korea, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, China, Croatia, Malaysia, Slovakia, Guatemala, Russia, Honduras, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Netherlands and Australia, Canada and Mexico in addition to almost every U.S. state (46 states and 23 countries). Biola grad Margaret Turner wrote on the Biola Facebook page: "Thank you, Biola, for having an awesome webcast of graduation! My siblings watched from over 2,000 miles away!" It truly was a global event and Biola was delighted to honor its accomplished graduates.