A Gallery of the Best Images From the Big Day at the UA

May 14, 2016
It was all quiet in Arizona Stadium as volunteers and techs made the final preparations for the UA Commencement ceremony.
Volunteers unpacked and prepared chilled bottled water as the students lined up outside.
Commencement volunteers sat in the shade while waiting for the gates to open.
Students streamed through security as the gates opened at Arizona Stadium, two hours before the start of the program.
Chandler Chavez , a Care, Health and Society program major, and her friend Hayley Vandyk, an accounting major, entered the stadium.
More than 300 volunteers worked Commencement, including these who greeted students as they entered the stadium.
Physioiogy graduates Kayla Darris and Daniel Kitts waited for their friends to arrive.
Arts, media and entertainment major Annie Polachek was with Rachel Altfeld and Jessica Granick, both family studies and human development graduates, as they brandished their decorated mortarboards.
A cheering squad for graduate Kayla Patterson included: Helen Hawkins , her grandmother from Louisiana; uncle J.J Jackson from California; and her parents, Glen Patterson and Tanya Patterson from California.
Joellen Russell, an associate professor of geosciences, participated in pre-Commencement activities in a segment called "Final Office Hours."
Bryan Carter, an associate professor of Africana studies, addressed the graduates during a segment called Final Office Hours.
UA President Ann Weaver Hart addressed the graduates.
A group of graduates celebrated toward the end of the ceremony.
The block "A" shined amid mortarboards.
A decorated mortarboard carried a keen message.
Fireworks were set off over Arizona Stadium and also from the roof of the Student Recreation Center, across Sixth Street from the ceremony.

More than 4,000 of about 6,000 students who received degrees this spring attended the University of Arizona's Commencement ceremony, along with more than than 40,000 guests.

Planning for the event began nearly a year ago and involved more than 300 volunteers.

Addressing the graduates during the 152nd Commencement ceremony, UA President Ann Weaver Hart encouraged the Class of 2016 to remain committed to progress, whether it be in the creation of new understandings or new experiences.

"As you graduate and move on to the next chapter in your lives, remember that every day, every moment, is a chance for action, for change, for the betterment of our world," Hart said.

"Though it may be a cliché, the sentiment that Commencement is just the beginning of your journeys is very true, and each day you will commence again," she said. "And so your degree records your achievements as students but also proclaims your potential as graduates, and tonight’s Commencement is a call to take hold of this moment in your lives and in our shared history to be leaders who contribute to the future — a new and still emerging moment for all of us."

Photography by John de Dios/UANews