Clockwise from top left: President Ruud offers congratulations to a master’s degree candidate at the first graduate commencement held at Ship. Friends and families love capturing the new graduates on film. Undergraduate commencement speaker Wanda Polk-Peyton. Graduates receive advice for the future. Center: Evan Forrester, graduate commencement speaker.

To give the master’s degree recipients more recognition for their hard work, the university instituted a graduate commencement ceremony just for them.

With all the tradition of an undergraduate commencement, the ceremony included a processional, the hooding ceremony, and a commencement address by alumnus Evan Forrester, a news anchor with Fox43.

Family was in evidence as they cheered their graduates. Balloons, flowers, signs, and cameras were commonplace as friends and families supported their loved ones. Held in the H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center, the ceremony was more intimate than those held previously. Of the 227 who earned degrees, approximately 125 participated in the inaugural ceremony.

The next morning it was standing room only as the undergraduates received their degrees in Heiges Field House. Wanda Polk-Peyton ’79 returned to campus to deliver the commencement address. She urged graduates to maintain their SU roots by being active in the alumni association and to stay close to family. President Bill Ruud remarked today’s graduates would probably change jobs more often and work in new fields than their parents and grandparents.

One thing that does not change is the mixed emotions of the graduates—happy they have accomplished their goals and sad to leave the place they called home for the past four years.