Commencement Celebration & Thank You!

Dear WPI Community,

It’s true – even rain (on Saturday) was not able to diminish the enthusiasm and passion that was displayed over this past weeks commencement events.

This year’s Commencement celebrations and programs demonstrated the true admiration and respect that our community has for our graduates and their families/friends. The week involved at least four different events – most notably the Graduate Ceremony, ROTC Commissioning, The Baccalaureate Program, and the Undergraduate Ceremony. All were broad community efforts.

The planning of Commencement weekend began early in the year. There are hundreds of individuals involved in coordinating the ceremonies. While nearly all of the campus is involved in these events, we'd like to give special thanks to several offices and groups:

• The Registrar's Office once again handled with grace the process of getting each degree recipient his or her individual diploma by confirming over 1,450 students for graduation and preparing and distributing the diplomas—all in exact order.
• The Facilities team carefully prepared our grounds and event venues for these special events. This staff worked all week to get ready for our 8000 + guests on Saturday.
• The staff of the Academic Technology Center delivered an impressive sound and lighting performance including the coordination of the live web stream for families and friends not able to attend.
• Our Marketing and Communications staff worked diligently to get the programs done on-time, signage ready for the week, and all the other last minute (surprise) details. This included tweeting out updates about parking and auxiliary viewing sites.   
• Our colleagues at Campus Police put into place a comprehensive plan for maintaining a safe and secure environment. We many times take their service for granted, yet we very much appreciate their dedicated focus on our behalf.
• The Events Office staff who were coordinating the Trustees Meetings and the many commencement related events – at the same time.  
• The Chartwells staff who served many warm cups of coffee, soup, and other food items during the numerous events.  
• It's a tall order to ask that 1,450 names be read with the correct pronunciation and cadence. Our great appreciation and thanks to our name readers, the unsung heroes who did just that.
• Lastly, we thank our faculty and staff who joined us on-stage for the ceremonies, who helped line-up our candidates in exact alpha order, who helped drive golf carts for our visitors, the staff who put out signage and monitored parking locations, and our students who served as ushers. This large event simply could not occur without their efforts!

Each and every WPI Community member plays an important role in the lives of our students and graduates. Thank you to everyone involved in making Commencement weekend such a success!

Gregory Snoddy

Adam Epstein

Emily Perlow

Commencement Administrative Marshalls