More than 800 MTSU students are preparing to celebrate receiving their hard-earned degrees at the university’s summer 2019 commencement ceremony, set next Saturday, Aug. 10, in Hale Arena inside Murphy Center.

The ceremony, which will begin at 10 a.m. Aug. 10, will feature a special commencement address from MTSU professor Pippa Holloway, the outgoing president of the university’s Faculty Senate and an associate professor in the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts.

Friends, families and supporters who can’t attend in person can watch the Aug. 10 ceremony live online at two sites: www.mtsu.edu/live and at http://facebook.com/mtsublueraiders.

The university will provide closed-captioning services for the live video streams as well as American Sign Language interpretation at the ceremony.

The live commencement coverage will begin about 15 minutes before the ceremony starts.

Dr. Pippa Holloway

The university Registrar’s Office reports that 817 students are preparing to graduate from MTSU this summer, including 603 undergraduates and 214 graduate students. The latter number includes 192 master’s candidates, two education-specialist degree recipients and 20 doctoral candidates. Twenty-three undergraduates also will be receiving certificates.

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

An official program listing all the graduates is available here.

MTSU’s commencement ceremonies are always free and open to the public. A campus map with parking details is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTParkingMap, and a seating chart of Murphy Center, including access for guests who use wheelchairs or have other mobility issues, is available here.

A pair of joyful spring 2019 MTSU graduates clutch their new advanced degrees in education and hold hands as they file out of Murphy Center during the university’s College of Graduate Studies May 2019 commencement ceremony. MTSU will present more than 800 students with degrees in the summer 2019 commencement ceremony set Saturday, Aug. 10. (MTSU file photo by J. Intintoli)

Professor Holloway, who earned her master’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her doctorate from Ohio State University, has been a member of the MTSU faculty since 1999.

Holloway has served in MTSU’s Faculty Senate since 2016 and is completing her tenure as the group’s president with the end of this 2018-19 academic year. She’s also served as director of graduate studies for the history department and is a widely published author and invited speaker who specializes in 19th- and 20th-century U.S. history, legal and political history, Southern history and gender and sexuality.

The professor is the current president of the Tennessee University Faculty Senates, which represents faculty senates across the state, and participates in the Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lectureship Program. She’s also been a member since 2016 of the editorial board of the Journal of Southern History, among her many academic activities.

Excited MTSU undergraduate students celebrate receiving their degrees during the university’s spring 2019 morning commencement ceremony in May. MTSU will present more than 800 students with degrees in the summer 2019 commencement ceremony set Saturday, Aug. 10. (MTSU file photo by Andy Heidt)

MTSU’s Aug. 10 summer commencement ceremony may last up to two hours, and all graduating students must remain for the entire event.

University officials are urging guests to arrive early to ease traffic congestion around Murphy Center and help ensure comfortable seating for everyone inside Hale Arena.

The Middle Tennessee Boulevard construction is now complete, and the expanded four-lane route is included in driving directions available anytime at www.mtsunews.com/graduation-info.

Graduation information — including links to maps and driving directions to MTSU, cap-and-gown information, official photographs and contacts for the Registrar’s Office — also is available anytime at www.mtsunews.com/graduation-info.

The university’s 2019-20 academic year begins Monday, Aug. 26, with the first official day of fall 2019 classes.

University Convocation, a public ceremony welcoming new freshmen into the MTSU family, is set for Saturday, Aug. 24, at 5 p.m. in Murphy Center and will feature Tara Westover, author of MTSU’s Summer Reading Selection, “Educated: A Memoir,” as guest speaker.

— Gina E. Fann (gina.fann@mtsu.edu)

A graduating MTSU student shows off her special personalized mortarboard just before the university’s spring 2019 morning commencement ceremony in May.MTSU will present more than 800 students with degrees in the summer 2019 commencement ceremony set Saturday, Aug. 10. (MTSU photo by GradImages)