As Texas State continues to grow, we must make thoughtful adjustments to ensure commencement ceremonies remain polished and meaningful while ensuring capacity for future growth. Given the imminent growth in our doctoral graduate population, we will be introducing ceremonies specifically for doctoral hooding beginning this fall.
Each college will host a doctoral hooding ceremony. These ceremonies will offer a dedicated and meaningful opportunity to honor doctoral graduates' accomplishments alongside their research professors, faculty mentors, families, and friends.
Doctoral graduates will still be invited to university-wide commencement ceremonies. For university-wide commencement:
• Doctoral graduates’ names, degrees, and research professors’ names will be printed in the commencement program.
• Doctoral graduates will continue to be seated in the first row of graduate seating, and their research professor can still sit alongside them.
• As they cross the stage, doctoral graduates’ names will be called and displayed on the screen, and they will receive their diploma cover from President Damphousse, which is an honor only conferred on doctoral graduates.
• Doctoral graduates will continue to participate in the photo opportunities available at commencement.
The primary change is that doctoral graduates will not be hooded at the university-wide ceremony and will instead wear their hood because they will have already been hooded at their earlier college ceremony.
We appreciate the faculty, staff, and students who help make these milestone celebrations so meaningful. Dedicated doctoral hooding ceremonies will preserve the distinctive recognition doctoral graduates receive at commencement while creating a sustainable and more personal approach to hooding.
As the events draw closer, each college will share additional information with their graduates about hooding ceremonies for the fall.
Sincerely,
Pranesh B. Aswath
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Graduates and faculty with questions about college-level hooding ceremonies should contact their college dean's office directly. A full schedule of all hooding ceremonies will be available soon on this website.