Celebrating Commencement

Dear Colleagues,

During this season at the University of Kentucky, I hope you share my overarching sense of hope and joy at the prospect of witnessing our students cross the stage during the commencement ceremonies at Rupp Arena this week. 

Much like we place importance on K Week, we place a similar emphasis on commencement. These two events are often the beginning and conclusion of our students’ journeys through the university — from an introduction to the campus and their peers to the moment their hard work and perseverance result in the conferring of degrees.

Between those two endpoints, you, as our faculty, play a substantial role in shaping how our students grow, both inside and outside of the classroom. For the students who you mentored, the students whose passions you helped uncover and the students who learned valuable skills in your classes — you occupy similar chapters of significance in their time at UK.

And now, we have arrived at commencement. It is a culmination of all the effort and dedication that a degree symbolizes. 

Commencement is a symbol of the end of a journey — not just for our students, for whom it marks the end of this chapter in their academic, professional and personal growth, but also for us, the ones who helped guide our students to this point. 

But it is not the end of all journeys — some students may turn to their professional careers and paths now, and some may choose to continue in academia with graduate or professional school. These next chapters are what fill me with hope and joy — seeing what critical issues our students will go on to solve, what boundaries they will continue to expand and the ways they will continue to advance Kentucky and the world.

More than 4,300 graduates are set to participate in the ceremonies on May 3 and 4. I hope you will join their family and friends in celebrating their accomplishments. For more information on attending, click here.

Thank you very much on behalf of our students for all these chapters you helped to write — and for all you continue to do for UK. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D. 
Provost