Unprecedented Five Commencement Ceremonies

An unprecedented five commencement ceremonies will be conducted this spring to award degrees to what is expected to be a record graduating class at Texas A&M University. More than 5,500 undergraduate and graduate students have applied for graduation during May 9-10 exercises at Reed Arena.

A separate graduation exercise will be conducted May 8 for an expected 128 students receiving Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees at Rudder Auditorium.

The precise number of undergraduate and graduate degree candidates will not be known until a few days before the commencement ceremonies are conducted, but the total will almost certainly exceed the 5,417 who received degrees in the spring of 2007, notes Registrar Don Carter, who has overseen Texas A&M’s graduation exercises since 1987.

“The number of ceremonies required to award degrees in the formal manner in which we think Texas A&M degrees should be conferred has prompted us to increase the number of ceremonies over the years,” Carter says. “We’ve conducted four May ceremonies since 2001, but the increasing large number of graduates now dictates that we go to five for spring.

“From an institutional perspective—and for the future of the state and nation—having to increase the number of graduation ceremonies is a nice problem to have,” he adds.

The line-up of commencement speakers for the ceremonies next month is now being finalized and is expected to be announced within the next few days, Carter says.

The schedule for awarding degrees at Reed Arena ceremonies on Friday, May 9: graduates in geosciences, liberal arts and recipients of degrees through the Council of Deans, 9 a.m.; graduates in agriculture and life sciences and architecture, 2 p.m.; graduates in engineering and from the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, 7 p.m.

On Saturday, May 10, graduates in business and veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences (those other recipients of D.V.M. degrees), 9 a.m.; graduates in education and human development and science, 2 p.m.

The 2 p.m. Saturday ceremonies also will include commissioning for approximately 83 members of the Corps of Cadets who will be entering the Army, Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps.

Commissioning will be followed by the Corps of Cadets’ traditional year-end ceremony known as “Final Review.” For “Final Review,” graduating seniors lead their units in a march for the final time and seniors-to-be subsequently take command of the units for a march-by for which the graduating seniors are the reviewing officers.