The 2017 Commencement ceremony will honor 559 undergraduates and 168 graduates in Moody Coliseum Saturday.
Graduates from the College of Arts and Sciences will be honored in the first ceremony at 11 a.m. The second ceremony will start at 3 p.m and will honor graduates from the College of Biblical Studies, the College of Business Administration, the College of Education & Human Services, the College of Graduate and Professional Studies and the School of Nursing. Graduates, their guests, and faculty and administration will gather in the mall area outside Moody for a reception following the ceremony.
Out of the total 559 undergraduates, 67 percent are female. Sixty-four students will graduate cum laude with a GPA of 3.9 through 4.00; 76 will graduate magna cum laude with a GPA of 3.75 through 3.89; and 70 will graduate cum laude with a GPA of 3.6 through 3.74. A total of 104 students will graduate in the Alpha Chi National Honor Society.
With 45 graduates, nursing ranks as the largest major and also the most popular major for females. Dr. Becky Hammack, dean of the School of Nursing, said the large number of nursing majors matches the national trend of many students studying nursing because of the current and future nursing shortage. The school has had more than 120 majors each year, although the school only started in 2012. Nursing majors can’t take nursing courses until their junior year, so Hammack said the department provides faculty mentors for freshmen and sophomores.
“We are very proud of our program and our students,” Hammack said.
Other popular majors for females are psychology, marketing, kinesiology and communication sciences and disorders. The most popular majors for males are accounting and finance, management, engineering, marketing and kinesiology. English and mathematics are the smallest majors with just five students.
More than 83 percent of the undergraduates are from Texas. The most popular states are California, Colorado, Oklahoma and Washington while the most popular countries are Thailand, Mexico, Rwanda and Malaysia.
