Fall commencement at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga will be celebrated with three separate ceremonies over two days starting Friday, Dec. 15. All ceremonies will take place inside McKenzie Arena.
Nearly 700 undergraduates and 130 graduate students will receive their degrees. In addition, many of the 217 undergraduates and 96 graduate students who completed their degrees in August will return to campus for commencement festivities.
Media members covering the ceremonies must obtain a commencement-specific credential to enter McKenzie Arena.
To obtain credentials, please email Chuck Wasserstrom in the Division of Communications and Marketing (chuck-wasserstrom@utc.edu) with the following information:
- Media Affiliation
- Ceremony (or ceremonies) planning to cover (for example, Saturday at 9 a.m.)
- Names of representatives covering the event; if it is a reporter and camera operator/photographer, they will both need a credential
Credential pickup and parking information will be confirmed upon receipt of the email.
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Graduate School commencement takes place at 2:30 p.m.
on Friday. TVFCU Vice President of Corporate Engagement Dionne Jenkins 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., with UTC alum David Wade, the president and CEO of EPB, as featured speaker. The Gary W. Rollins College of Business/College of Health, Education and Professional Studies ceremony starts at 1 p.m., and the featured speaker is Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly.
Separate ceremonies are necessary because of temporarily reduced capacity due to McKenzie Arena construction. As such, no one will be allowed into the arena without a ticket or proper credentials.
Click here for the UTC Newsroom story providing additional commencement information and biographies on the speakers.
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This will be the 262nd 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.
Among the students being celebrated this week:
- Bachelor of Applied Science: Applied Leadership degree recipient Lorina Upshaw’s journey toward a bachelor’s degree started 53 years ago. Then known as Lorina Burse, she came to UTC in 1970—in the University’s first full year as a member of the UT System—after graduating from The Howard School.
- Fatimah Musa (Ringgold, Georgia, High School), who will receive a bachelor’s degree in mechatronics, was born with cone-rod dystrophy—a type of inherited retinal degeneration affecting the retina’s photoreceptor cells. The condition is characterized by progressive loss of function and death of the eyes’ cone and rod photoreceptor cells, leading to vision loss.
- With UTC’s 100% online MBA program, students can complete their studies from anywhere in the world. Gentry Whittaker's experience was unlike most others, as the Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences graduate traveled the country “as a nomad” and gave birth to her daughter, Echo.
- During Friday’s Graduate School commencement exercise, 72-year-old Tony Galloway will participate in a doctoral hooding ceremony—the recipient of a doctorate in Education: Learning and Leadership (Ed.D.). Galloway was UTC Professor Beth Crawford’s high school history teacher; Crawford will be on stage for the ceremony.
- Being a well-balanced student is not an easy feat, and as a student-athlete with a 4.0 GPA, Emmy Davis (The Baylor School) knows this all too well. The cross country and track and field runner will graduate summa cum laude with a degree in finance.
- Isaiah Mark Owens (Oakland High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee) took acting classes in high school and, when all was said and done, the thrill of acting stuck. The theatre major has been involved in all facets of campus life at UTC.
- Mackenzie Smith (Hardin Valley Academy in Knoxville, Tennessee) wants to become the seventh doctor in her immediate family. But first, the two-time all-Southern Conference soccer player has her eye on playing professionally overseas.
- Keely Phillips (Shelbyville, Tennessee, High School) and Kyndall Blum (East Hamilton High School) are the first students to attend UTC as music therapy majors for all four years they were enrolled and are graduating as part of December commencement ceremonies. Joseph Taylor (Grace Christian Academy in Knoxville), who transferred from Belmont University in Nashville to UTC as a junior, also is graduating with a music therapy degree—the first transfer student to earn the degree.