For the first time since 2019, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga commencement ceremonies will fill McKenzie Arena to the rafters. Restrictions that had previously applied to UTC commencement—first going virtual due to COVID-19; then limited when returning to an in-person format due to pandemic and public health restrictions; and finally limited seating capacity because of McKenzie Arena renovations—have been lifted.
Spring commencement will be celebrated with three separate ceremonies over two days starting Friday.
- Graduate School commencement takes place at 2:30 p.m.
on Friday. Dr. Edna Varner, a UC Foundation Board of Trustee and longtime member of the Public Education Foundation, will deliver the graduation charge.
- Two undergraduate commencement ceremonies will take place on Saturday. The College of Arts and Sciences/College of Engineering and Computer Science ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. The Gary W. Rollins College of Business/College of Health, Education and Professional Studies ceremony starts at 1 p.m. The featured speaker for both undergraduate ceremonies is UTC alumnus Richard Zhang, who graduated summa cum laude in 1992 with bachelor’s degrees in chemistry, economics and accounting.
More than 1,300 undergraduates and nearly 300 graduate students will receive their degrees. Those numbers include approximately 250 first-generation college students and 90 military-affiliated students (consisting of veterans, spouses and dependents).
Among the students being celebrated this week:
- UTC Global Response Assistantship scholarship recipients Nina Klimenkova and Arsen Martyshchuk will receive master’s degrees. Before they say goodbye to UTC, the two reflect on their journey from Ukraine and their time in Chattanooga.
- Triple major and Brock Scholar Jannat Saeed will be receiving bachelor’s degrees in history, humanities: international studies and software systems.
- Nehemiah Antoine, a chemistry major and Innovations in Honors member, recently discussed his career path toward medicinal chemistry research.
- Emma Sprayberry, a highly decorated and well-traveled student who recently landed a Fulbright Scholarship to Taiwan, will receive bachelor’s degrees in humanities: international studies and Spanish.
- Members of the UTC occupational therapy doctoral program, including Mckenna Menard and Raven Smith, who spent the spring semester on their capstone projects throughout the Chattanooga area.
This will be the 263rd overall commencement for the University, founded in 1886 as the then-private Chattanooga University. The first UTC graduation ceremony took place Aug. 23, 1969, at the Tivoli Theatre in downtown Chattanooga.
Click here for the UTC Newsroom preview, which provides additional commencement information and speaker biographies.