Graduate School

University of Georgia Griffin graduates had the opportunity to literally leave their mark on campus during the Spring 2021 Brick Ceremony held on Thursday, May 13. This event is special to UGA Griffin, with each graduate receiving a brick, featuring their name and class year, to be placed on the floor of the Naomi Chapman Woodroof Agricultural Pavilion where it will remain for all time.

“When you come back 20 or 30 years from now, with the kids and grandkids, you will be able to bring them over and find your brick,” said Dr. David Buntin, Interim Assistant Provost and Campus Director for UGA Griffin. “By then hopefully we will have the entire floor covered in bricks of our graduates.”

In order to keep with social distancing measures, separate ceremonies were held for graduate students and undergraduate students, with each featuring a student speaker for the group. The student speakers were nominated and selected by UGA faculty and staff. 

The University of Georgia Griffin Campus held the Fall Graduation Celebration and Brick Ceremony for the class of 2017 on Thursday, December 14, 2017 in the Stuckey Auditorium. In total, 24 students received their degrees and became alumni of the oldest state-supported university in the nation. This was the 22^nd graduation ceremony held on the Griffin Campus.  

Dr. Lew Hunnicutt, Assistant Provost and Campus Director, welcomed students, along with their families and friends, before introducing Keynote Speaker Dr. Russell Mumper, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs for UGA.

Dr. Mumper challenged the graduates to never become stagnant. Instead to keep challenging themselves, building upon their skills and accomplishments as well as being open to the possibility of change.

Two years after she received her bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia, Rachael Hart Earls was excited to return to her alma mater to begin her doctoral studies. But as she prepared for life in a laboratory as a neuroscientist, she worried that she would feel isolated and wondered if there was a way to create synergies between her academic goals and her desire to work with people outside of the lab.

She found the answer in Graduate Scholars LEAD (Leadership, Engagement and Development), a program launched this summer by the Graduate School. Funded by a $495,000 Innovations in Graduate Education grant from the National Science Foundation, the 
program fosters the development of critical thinking skills, teamwork, communication and leadership. 

"I was sold right away," Earls said of the program, which includes an eight-week summer academy facilitated by faculty from the J. W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, College of Engineering, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, and College of Veterinary Medicine. It also includes a follow-up grand challenges course, through which students are working this fall to design a meaningful solution for a community in need.