MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Murphy Center at Middle Tennessee State University will once again host thousands of proud family, friends and supporters who will be on hand Saturday, Aug. 10, to celebrate more than 770 new graduates receiving their degrees during the 2024 summer commencement.

The ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. Central Aug. 10 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 774 students set to graduate in the ceremony, 542 are undergraduates and 232 are graduate students, including 184 master’s candidates, nine education-specialist recipients and 38 doctoral candidates. Five graduate students will be receiving graduate certificates, according to the Registrar’s Office.

The newest Blue Raider alumni and their supporters will hear congratulatory remarks from MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee and keynote remarks from Kari Neely, associate professor in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and immediate past president of the Faculty Senate.

Neely received her bachelor’s and master’s in anthropology from the University of Arkansas

and her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan. In 2007, she returned to her Southern roots by joining the MTSU faculty in the College of Liberal Arts.

Neely teaches courses on the Arabic language, international graphic novels, and graphic novels about the Middle East. Her current research focuses on the construction of multilingual visual landscapes in comics set in the Middle East.

She served as president of MTSU’s Faculty Senate for the 2023-24 academic year where she led a body of senators elected from every department on campus who advocate for faculty and work to improve policies impacting them.

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 andthe University College — will receive their degrees during the ceremony. 

With the summer 2024 commencement ceremony, MTSU will have awarded more than 186,100 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. 10 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 https://www.mtsu.edu/murphycenter/facilities/.  

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

The university’s 2024-25 academic year begins Monday, Aug. 26, with the first official day of fall 2024 classes. 

MTSU will formally welcome its new freshman class of 2028 and new transfer students at University Convocation in Murphy Center on Saturday, Aug. 24, at 2 p.m. Central. 

That special event will feature Firoozeh Dumas, author of the MTSU summer reading book, “Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of a Global Citizen,” 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)