Press release from UNC Asheville:
The UNC Asheville Spring Commencement will honor more than 450 students from the 2024 graduating class at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 11. The ceremony will take place in Kimmel Arena, with doors opening at 8:30 a.m.
This class of graduates is composed of 92 percent in-state students and 8 percent out-of-state students. The youngest graduate is 19 years old, and the oldest is 60. Also graduating will be two international candidates representing Norway and Turkey.
Psychology and Environmental Science are the two most popular majors, with 57 and 37 graduates, respectively. Health and Wellness, Biology and Art rounded out the top five.
The average class cumulative GPA comes out to 3.39.
This day will be a particular cause for celebration for two graduates, a mother and son who will both be receiving degrees at this year’s commencement ceremony. Jennifer Alaine will be receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, and her son, Perrin Alaine-Sedano, will be receiving a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. They will receive their degrees one after the other during the ceremony.
This May also marks a momentous occasion for the UNC Asheville–UNC Gillings Master of Public Health program, as this graduating class will be the first in program history to receive a jointly conferred degree from both UNC Asheville and UNC-Chapel Hill.
The program began as a site of the Program Leadership and Practice Program (PHLP) Master of Public Health program of the Gillings School of Global Public Health in 2018. It is now a joint program between UNC Asheville and UNC Gillings, the only program in the country that is a partnership between a school of public health and a primarily undergraduate institution. The program’s place-based concentration, which emphasizes people and places as the center for learning transferable public health skills, is also the first of its kind in the nation.
The six graduates receiving joint degrees will be honored at a special ceremony in the Laurel Forum of UNC Asheville May 9, and they will walk in the UNC-Chapel Hill graduation ceremony May 11.
The UNC Asheville ceremony, which will be presided over by Chancellor Kimberly van Noort, can be viewed via livestream on UNC Asheville’s YouTube Channel.
More information about the ceremony, including parking and a map, can be found here.
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