The University of Mississippi will host more than 5,500 graduates at its 2025 Commencement ceremony, which is set to begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 10 in the Grove. In the case of bad weather, the ceremony will be moved to The Pavilion.
“We’ve got about 3,900 prospective spring graduates, plus December and August candidates totaling 5,522,” Caitlin Bagwell, systems and reporting analyst for the Office of the Registrar, said.
The number of graduates is increasing yearly.
“Ole Miss anticipates a slight increase in 2025 graduates,” Bagwell said. “It’s not yet a dramatic growth, but we’re seeing those bigger incoming classes start to graduate.”
Each school within the university has its graduation ceremony, as well. The School of Business Administration is the largest this year, followed by the College of Liberal Arts and the School of Applied Sciences. Master’s students for these three schools have their own ceremony due to an influx of students in the schools’ respective programs.
With growing class sizes, there is also growing paperwork. The registrar’s office processes thousands of records related to graduation, from final degree audits to ensuring each name is spelled correctly before diplomas ship after the ceremonies.
“As we keep talking about incoming classes being bigger and bigger, the first thing I think about is all of the paperwork that’s going to go into Commencement,” Bagwell said. “We don’t mail diplomas from a third party; I pack them up individually myself and mail every single one.”
Bagwell explained the stress behind the paperwork as over 14,000 individual documents are processed.
“When final grades are posted, we work 12-hour days during last-minute degree audits, and some students don’t fill their degree requirements until their final grades. So we adjust lists up until the printer deadline,” Bagwell said. “Then there’s always the panicked emails like, ‘I need proof I graduated today for my new job.’”
Another big task for putting together this year’s ceremony was securing the speaker. Delivering the Commencement speech this year is A.J. Brown, a former Ole Miss football player and Super Bowl winner.
“It’s very special to have former Rebels who have made it big come back,” Sara Austin Welch, a practicum student for Special Events, said. “When it comes to someone exciting like A.J., it is a great way to tie things up and students can forever say who spoke at their graduation.”
Brown has an ongoing relationship with the Ole Miss Football program and donated $500,000 to improve athletic facilities in 2023.
“The Chancellor’s office works with alumni relations to identify potential speakers,” Welch said. “For A.J. Brown, it was perfect timing, as he was fresh off the Super Bowl, still connected to Ole Miss and exactly the kind of success story we want to highlight.”
Bagwell added her support to securing Brown as a Commencement speaker.
“He checks every box: young enough that students know him, successful enough to impress parents and the Ole Miss connection that makes it special,” Bagwell said.
Editor’s note: In portions of a previous version of this article, Sara Austin Welch was incorrectly quoted. Those statements have been deleted. In the earlier version of this article, Welch’s title also was wrong. It has been corrected.
