[439]MTSU ANNOUNCES GRADUATES FOR SPRING 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 6, 2008
CONTACT: News and Public Affairs, 615-898-2493

MTSU ANNOUNCES GRADUATES FOR SPRING 2008
County-by-County Listing of Spring2008 Graduates Available Online May 8

(MURFREESBORO)—Beginning at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, May 8, Middle Tennessee State University will release the names and hometowns of those students who graduated during the spring 2008 commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 3, in Murphy Center on the MTSU campus.
Of the 2,046 set to graduate during the 96th spring commencement, 1,760 were undergraduates and 286 were graduate students, including 234 master’s candidates, 45 Education Specialists candidates, one graduate certificate recipient, one Doctor of Arts candidate and five Ph.D. candidates.
The dual-commencement event featured Pete Fisher, vice president/general manager for the Grand Ole Opry, as the guest speaker for the 9 a.m. ceremony. He earned a bachelor's degree in mass communication from MTSU, with a concentration in recording industry management, and was recognized as a distinguished alumnus in 2004. He also currently serves as president of the Nashville chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and hold membership on the board of directors for the Nashville Songwriters Foundation and the Academy of Country Music.
Ernest G. Burgess, Rutherford County mayor, was the featured speaker for the 1 p.m. commencement ceremony. A cattle farmer and businessman, he is a lifelong resident of Rutherford County and was elected to serve as mayor in 2006. Burgess e earned a Bachelor of Science degree from MTSU and a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee. He retired as senior vice president of operations for the National Healthcare Corporation, or NHC, and is a past chairman of the Republican Party of Rutherford County.
Following the ceremonies’ respective guest speakers, degree candidates from the College of Graduate Studies, Jennings A. Jones College of Business, and College of Education and Behavioral Science were conferred with their degrees in the morning ceremony, while degree candidates in the College of Basic and Applied Sciences, College of Liberal Arts, College of Mass Communication, and the College of Continuing Education and Distance Learning, were conferred during the afternoon event.

 HOW TO OBTAIN YOUR COUNTY’S STUDENT LIST: To obtain a list for editorial use of those students from your county who graduated during MTSU’s spring 2008 commencement, please access this information on the News and Public Affairs (NPA) Web site at www.mtsunews.com and click on the “MTSU Graduation Lists” link on the upper, left-hand side of the page.
Next, click on the “Spring 2008” link, which will include an alphabetical, county-by-county listing of those MTSU students who graduated May 3.
***Please note that this Web page also contains directions on how to download and save your county’s list for editorial use in your publication.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: If you encounter any problems downloading and saving your county’s dean’s list, please contact the Office of News and Public Affairs at MTSU at 615-898-2919 for assistance.