Thousands of students celebrate graduation from Miami

Nearly 4,800 Miami University students celebrated graduation during a string of commencement ceremonies held May 17 and 18.

The main commencement ceremony at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Yager Stadium featured Jeff Berding, a 1991 graduate and CEO of FC Cincinnati. Berding, along with alumni David Budig, Kay Geiger and Mike and Fran DeWine, each received honorary degrees.

The Class of 2025 was the first class to apply to college after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many students were unable to visit the campus before applying or even committing, according to reporting by The Miami Student.

The class ended up being the largest in university history heading into the Fall 2021 semester, with more than 4,600 first-year students committing. At the time the class was admitted, it included residents of 85 of Ohio’s 88 counties, 43 states and 28 countries. Applicants looking to start at Miami in 2021 were also the first ones with the option to directly apply to the university’s Honors College, which grew out of an earlier honors program.

According to the university, more than 15% of graduates earning bachelor’s degrees received cum laude honors, with 10.2% graduating magna cum laude and 6.5% summa cum laude. The most popular majors among graduates included finance, marketing, biology, psychology and kinesiology.

This year’s graduates saw a number of changes on campus in the past four years, from the creation of a faculty union to the onset of artificial intelligence in classrooms. The campus also physically transformed with the completion of the McVey Data Science Building and the Clinical Health and Wellness Building. As the graduates move on to the next stage of life, changes at Miami continue, including the renovation of Bachelor Hall into a humanities hub and planning for a proposed basketball arena on Cook Field.