University of Georgia graduates will be starting jobs or taking vacations a month earlier than in  past years when UGA holds its first spring commencement under the semester system on May 8.
Nearly 5,000 students are estimated to be eligible to receive degrees during the ceremonies, which are for students who complete degree requirements at the end of spring semester.
Cable television entrepreneur Ted Turner will speak at the ceremony for undergraduates at 9:30 a.m. in Sanford Stadium. In case of rain, the ceremony will be moved to Stegeman Coliseum and split into two sessions, at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. A decision to move to the coliseum will be made by 7 a.m. and announced on Athens radio stations.
Commencement for candidates for master’s, specialist and doctoral degrees will be at 2:30 p.m. in Stegeman Coliseum. William McFeely, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and retired UGA faculty member, will speak.
Registrar Gary Moore estimates that 3,739 students will be eligible to receive bachelor’s and professional degrees, and 1,250 will be eligible to receive graduate degrees.
The actual number who complete requirements for degrees won’t be known until the end of spring semester final exams, which will be held the week before Commencement.
This will be UGA’s first spring commencement since converting from the quarter system to a semester calendar. Under quarters, the spring term usually ended the first week in June, and commencement was the second weekend in June.
Under semesters, the spring term usually ends the first week in May, so UGA graduates had always been a month behind their semester-school counterparts in job searches and post-school activities. Eliminating that gap is cited as one of the advantages of the semester system.
This will not be UGA’s first commencement under the semester system, however; a ceremony was held last December for students who completed degree requirements at the end of summer quarter 1998 and fall semester 1998.
The university will continue to hold two commencement exercises in each academic year--a December ceremony for students who complete requirements in the summer and fall semesters, and a May ceremony for those who finish at the end of spring semester.
Turner, founder of CNN, TBS and other major cable networks, is vice chairman of Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media company. In addition to addressing the graduates, he will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree, UGA’s highest recognition after the earned doctorate.
Twenty-four First Honor Graduates--students who have maintained perfect 4.0 grade point averages for their college careers--will be recognized during the undergraduate ceremony.
Among them are Beth Shapiro of Lindale, chosen this year as a Rhodes Scholar, and Charles Mathis of Watkinsville, a 17-year-old who entered UGA early and will also graduate in May from Oconee County High School.
Shapiro is the 18th Rhodes Scholar in UGA history and the third UGA student in the last four years to win the prestigious award. Mathis is Oconee County High’s valedictorian and STAR student, and scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT.
McFeely, the graduate commencement speaker, is an authority on the Civil War, American race relations and the civil rights movement. He won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize in history for a biography of Ulysses S. Grant and was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer for a biography of Frederick Douglass. He was on the UGA history faculty from 1986 until his retirement in 1997.
All of this year’s graduates will be welcomed into UGA’s National Alumni Association by the organization’s new president, Hilton Young, an Athens insurance executive.
The College of Veterinary Medicine and School of Law will hold separate commencement ceremonies. The veterinary medicine exercises will be May 9 at 2:30 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. The law school ceremony will be at 10 a.m. May 15 on the quadrangle in front of the school. Former Gov. Zell Miller will speak; 222 students will receive J.D. degrees and 27 will receive LL.M. degrees.
Some of the other schools and colleges will also hold graduation ceremonies for their students but will participate in the university exercises. Other units will hold receptions in conjunction with commencement. They include:
May 7: College of Education graduation ceremonies; Terry College of Business M.B.A. graduation ceremony; African-American Cultural Center Rite of Sankofa;
May 8: Franklin College of Arts and Sciences reception; Terry College of Business reception; School of Environmental Design reception; College of Pharmacy graduation ceremony; College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences graduation ceremony; Warnell School of Forest Resources graduation ceremony; College of Family and Consumer Sciences graduation ceremony; School of Social Work hooding ceremony. |
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