Middle Tennessee State University will celebrate more than 830 new alumni as they cross the stage at Murphy Center Saturday, Aug. 12, to receive their degrees during the 2023 summer commencement.

The ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. Central Saturday in Hale Arena inside Murphy Center at 2650 Middle Tennessee Blvd and is open to the public. The event also will stream live at https://mtsu.edu/live and on the university’s Facebook channel, https://facebook.com/mtsublueraiders, and will be broadcast on MTSU’s “True Blue TV” station on local cable channels and at https://mtsu.edu/TrueBlueTV.

Of the 834 students in the August Class of 2023 set to graduate, 559 are undergraduates and 275 are graduate students, according to the Registrar’s Office. The graduate student group includes 245 master’s candidates, 13 education specialist recipients and 17 doctoral candidates. Five graduate students will be receiving graduate certificates.

Graduates and their supporters will hear congratulatory remarks from MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee and keynote remarks from Stephen Salter, a professor of accounting in MTSU’s Jennings A. Jones College of Business and the immediate past president of the Faculty Senate. 

Salter has a Ph.D. in accounting and international business from the Moore College of Business at the University of South Carolina. Moore College has been U.S. News & World Report’s top school for International Business for many years.

Before joining MTSU, Salter was a professor of accounting and endowed chair for Western Hemispheric Trade at the University of Texas–El Paso. He also taught at the University of Cincinnati and Texas A&M University.

At MTSU, he teaches at the graduate and undergraduate level, specializing in strategic cost and control in health care, management accounting, and international accounting. Through the Fulbright Specialist Program, he has taught in Chile and Uruguay both in English and Spanish.

Students from all MTSU’s colleges — Graduate Studies, Basic and Applied Sciences, Behavioral and Health Sciences, the Jones College of Business, the College of Education, Liberal Arts and the University College — will receive their degrees during the ceremony. 

With the summer 2023 commencement ceremony, MTSU will have awarded more than 181,500 degrees to its students, including associate, bachelor’s, master’s, educational specialist and doctoral degrees, since its 1911 founding.

More ceremony details

MTSU will provide closed-captioning services for the live video streams as well as American Sign Language interpretation at the ceremony. The live coverage will begin about 15 minutes before commencement starts. 

MTSU’s Aug. 12 summer commencement ceremony is expected to last about two hours. All graduating students must remain for the entire event.                                                                                                                                

A campus map with parking details for guests is available at http://bit.ly/MTSUParking. A seating chart of Murphy Center, including access for guests with mobility issues, is available at http://ow.ly/TCkd30ld2PQ.

Driving directions, along with complete graduation details for students and guests, are available anytime at https://mtsu.edu/graduation and https://mtsunews.com/graduation-info.

The university’s 2023-24 academic year begins Monday, Aug. 28, with the first official day of fall 2023 classes. 

MTSU will formally welcome its new freshman class of 2027 and new transfer students at University Convocation in Murphy Center on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 2 p.m. Central. 

That special event will feature Bruce Feiler, the author of the MTSU summer reading book, “Life is in the Transitions,” as guest speaker. It also will air live at https://www.mtsu.edu/live,https://facebook.com/mtsublueraiders and https://mtsu.edu/TrueBlueTV.

— Jimmy Hart (Jimmy.Hart@mtsu.edu)