Faculty and Staff
College Deans
College deans march in with the stage party and are seated on the stage. For graduate students, the deans will stand next to the reader’s podium and assist the provost and vice president, with the hooding of masters recipients.
Department Chairs/Leaders
Department chairs/leaders lead their students in, sit with them and lead them to the stage. Chairs/leaders are introduced by the academic reader and proceed to the other end of the stage. Please look for the small black footprints on the floor. Chairs/leaders will shake hands with each graduate while awarding the diploma cover. A professional photograph will be taken. As you and the graduate pose for the professional photograph, please hold the diploma cover in an upright position with the school seal facing toward the camera.
After the last graduate from your department has been photographed, please return to your seat. It is important, for purposes of producing name cards, to notify the Office of the Registrar if a replacement is designated to walk for a department chair/leader (other than previously reported). Please discourage students from leaving before the end of the ceremony.
Faculty Participants
Faculty will be led in during the processional by marshals and will be seated in rows behind the graduates.
Academic Readers
Academic readers are seated to the left of the stage. When the marshal leads the first department chair/college leader and students to the stage, the reader proceeds to the reader’s podium at the top of the ramp. Readers introduce each department chair/leader/director. Students hand the reader their name cards. The reader reads the students’ names and, for undergraduates, any honors designations listed (summa cum laude, magna cum laude or cum laude). Please do not read any other information on the card.
Students walk across the stage and shake the hands of several university designees, then proceed to the department chair/leader at the far side of the stage, where they will receive a diploma cover and pose for a professional photograph.
A can or box will be placed beside the reader’s podium for placement of the name cards once they have been read.
