MTSU's 4 graduation ceremonies set Friday & Saturday

Courtesy of MTSU
·3 min read

Middle Tennessee State University will celebrate an estimated 2,658 students graduating Friday and Saturday.

MTSU President Sidney McPhee will speak briefly to the graduates and guests at each of the four ceremonies at the university's Murphy Center:

  • The College of Basic and Applied Sciences graduation will be at a 1:30 p.m. Friday. The speaker is Bill Jones, a 1982 graduate who's an area executive based in Murfreesboro for Pinnacle Financial Partners.

  • The College of Liberal Arts and College of Media and Entertainment will be at 6 p.m. Friday. The speaker will be Nic Dugger, a TV producer and entrepreneur. He graduated in 2000 from MTSU as a mass communication student.

  • The Jennings A. Jones College of Business and the University College (adults, parents, veterans, active military and traditional college students) will graduate at 9 a.m. Saturday. The guest speaker is Matt Crews, founder and CEO of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix and a 1991 MTSU business management graduate.

  • The College of Behavioral and Health Sciences and College of Education graduation will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. The speaker will be Pamela Wright, a 1973 MTSU psychology graduate and founder of Wright Travel. She's also president and managing partner of Wright Development and a member of the MTSU Board of Trustees.

Those graduating include 408 graduate students, according to the university Registrar’s Office. MTSU has 352 earning master’s degrees. Another 37 are education-specialist degree recipients, and 19 have competed doctoral degrees.

MTSU also reports 212 graduate students who’ll receive certificates for their advanced study.

Founded in 1911, MTSU after this weekend will have awarded more than 180,700 degrees.

All ceremonies will be open to the public. MTSU no longer requires masks indoors, but they’re still welcomed and encouraged for those who prefer to wear them, as is social distancing for health safety.

Ceremonies available online, on TV

MTSU football player Gregory Grate Jr. dances across the stage as he graduates with a degree in Behavioral and Health Sciences during one of 3 MTSU 2022 Sprong graduations programs on Saturday, May 7, 2022.
MTSU football player Gregory Grate Jr. dances across the stage as he graduates with a degree in Behavioral and Health Sciences during one of 3 MTSU 2022 Sprong graduations programs on Saturday, May 7, 2022.

Friends, families and supporters who are unable to attend graduation in person can watch the ceremonies live on the university’s livestream channel, https://www.mtsu.edu/live, and on the university’s Facebook page, https://facebook.com/mtsublueraiders. Online commencement coverage will begin about 15 minutes before each ceremony starts.

The events also will be broadcast on MTSU’s True Blue TV station on local cable channels and at https://mtsu.edu/TrueBlueTV. Each of this spring’s commencement ceremonies is expected to last about two hours.

The university will provide closed-captioning services for the live video streams as well as American Sign Language interpretation on-site at the ceremonies.

MTSU offers online 2023 commencement program and campus map

The official spring 2023 commencement program, listing all the graduates by college as well as providing more details on the guest speakers, is available at https://bit.ly/MTSpring2023GradProgram.

A campus map with parking information is available at http://bit.ly/MTSUParking. A seating chart of Murphy Center, including access for guests with disabilities, is available at http://ow.ly/TCkd30ld2PQ. 

This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: MTSU's 4 graduation ceremonies set Friday and Saturday