MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — MTSU’s 372 newest graduate degree
recipients joyfully celebrated their years of educational accomplishment
Friday, May 5, with some heartfelt advice from a longtime psychology professor.
Michael Hein, who developed MTSU’s nationally
recognized graduate program in industrial/organizational psychology and directs
the university’s Center for
Organizational and Human Resource Effectiveness, recalled his military
basic training, when he was told to “police your area. Leave it better than you
found it.”
“I’m not
going to ask you to go out and change the world,” he told the new graduates.
“I’m just going to ask you to leave your piece of the world better than you
found it, every day, every week, every month.
“If we
all do that, that’s going to have a huge impact.”
The
university’s College of Graduate Studies
presented 332 master’s degrees, 12 education-specialist degrees and 28
doctoral degrees in an afternoon ceremony marked by joyful shouts that rang
through Hale Arena in Murphy Center. MTSU will award 2,171 undergraduate
degrees Saturday, May 6, in two more commencement ceremonies.
New grad Jeannie Stubblefield received her
bachelor’s degree in biology in 2011, then used research in drug discovery for
what she called “some of the worst neglected tropical diseases” to earn her
doctorate in biosciences Friday. Her success included co-authoring papers and
two patents through the Tennessee Center
for Environmental Research.
“I feel
very blessed to have been a part of the MTSU community through all this,” said
Stubblefield, who’s received a prestigious fellowship with the University of
Washington in Seattle and will move there in July. “MTSU was a great stepping
stone. “I would not have achieved this opportunity without their help. It’s the
end of one chapter and the start of a new career.”
Echoing Stubblefield’s
experience, MTSU President Sidney A.
McPhee encouraged the new graduates to “bask in the glory that surrounds
this day” but reminded them that it’s also a starting point for their next
adventures.
“You may feel that this long
journey is over,” McPhee said. “We feel that it is just a comma, not a period,
in your story. It is just the beginning of even greater things to come.”
Former
state commissioner of Tennessee Economic and Community Development Randy Boyd is the guest speaker for the
university’s 9 a.m. undergraduate commencement ceremony May 6. Williamson
County Schools Superintendent Mike
Looney will speak at the 2 p.m. May 6 undergraduate ceremony.
Students
from the College of Basic and Applied
Sciences, the Jones College of
Business, the College of Education,
and the College of Media and
Entertainment will receive their degrees in the May 6 morning ceremony.
Students
in the College of Behavioral and Health
Sciences, College of Liberal Arts, and the University College will receive their degrees in the May 6
afternoon event.
MTSU’s
commencement ceremonies are always free and open to the public. Friends,
families and supporters who can’t attend in person can watch each ceremony live
online May 5 and 6 via streaming video.
The live
commencement coverage will begin about 15 minutes before each ceremony starts;
visit http://ow.ly/rwxOz for details
about the video feed.
Guests
attending each ceremony should arrive early to ease traffic congestion
around Murphy Center and help ensure comfortable seating for everyone inside
Hale Arena. Motorists should avoid Middle Tennessee Boulevard because of
ongoing construction; route suggestions are available at http://www.mtsunews.com/graduation-info.
An
official program, listing all the graduates, is now available at http://ow.ly/dfWk30bgTyW.
MTSU’s
Graduation Committee noted that all graduating students must stay for their
entire commencement ceremony. Each ceremony may last up to two hours.
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