SPRINGFIELD — A total of 105 current and former Missouri State University student-athletes will participate in the university’s commencement ceremonies Friday at Great Southern Bank Arena on the Springfield campus. These student-athletes have completed — or will be completing — their undergraduate and post-graduate requirements this spring and summer.
 
For the eighth straight year, students who are on track to complete their degrees during the summer term will also be recognized with the spring graduating class.
 
Including 80 student-athletes designated as spring graduates and 25 summer graduates, a total of 105 Bears will be “turning pro” in their various fields of study this week.
 
During the 2024-25 academic year, A total of 133 Missouri State student-athletes will have completed their degrees. That total includes 28 individuals who finished their program requirements in December of 2024 at the conclusion of the fall term.
 
The MSU spring student-athlete class of 80 graduates matches the third-largest on record, while the 133 total for the academic year matches last year for the fifth-highest total of graduating student-athletes.
 
The top commencement classes for Missouri State Athletics are now: May 2021 (82), May 2017 (81), May 2025 (80), May 2023 (79), May 2024 (79), May 2019 (79), May 2020 (75), May 2015 (73), May 2018 (71).
 
Over the last 10 years, MSU commencement exercises have seen 1,299 student-athletes earn degrees, while 518 former Bears have graduated over the past four years alone. This year also marks the 12th consecutive academic year with more than 100 graduating Bears student-athletes.

Football (23), women’s swimming & diving (16) and women’s soccer (11) paced all sports in terms of individual graduates for the 2025 spring and summer class.

 

The 2025 spring and summer commencement list also includes 38 MSU student-athletes graduating with academic honors and 23 earning post-graduate degrees.

 

Ten student-athletes earned the top academic honor of summa cum laude (###) with a cumulative grade-point average of 3.90 or higher, including: Alex Boutin (men’s swimming & diving); Riley Drew (beach volleyball); Maddy Bushnell (volleyball); Mackenzie Chacon (softball); Jenna Anderson (women’s soccer); Iraia Arrue (women’s soccer); Grace O’Keefe (women’s soccer); Ashlie German (women’s swimming & diving); Jordan Drum (women’s track & field); and Juliette Robinson* (women’s tennis). 

 

Ten additional student-athletes compiled GPAs in the 3.75-3.89 range to earn magna cum laude (##) distinction: Lilly Whitley (women’s golf); Kim DeBold (softball); McKenzie Vaughan (softball); Kaeli Benedict (women’s soccer); Brynna Rutherford (women’s soccer); Sophia Hawley (women’s swimming & diving); Amy Henning (women’s tennis); Katie Griffin (women’s track & field); Chris Bedsole* (men’s swimming & diving); Chayenne Chivrac* (women’s golf).

 

Eighteen additional student-athletes finished with GPAs in the 3.50 to 3.74 range to garner cum laude (#) laurels. Becca Bach (beach volleyball) and Juliette Robinson (women’s tennis) will also be recognized for their work with a more rigorous curriculum in Missouri State’s Honors College.

 

All told, Missouri State University will confer a total of 2,804 degrees during ceremonies at Great Southern Bank Arena on Friday, including 1,938 bachelor’s degrees, 736 master’s degrees, 123 doctorate degrees and seven specialist degrees. Beyond the standard expectations, the university will recognize 68 students for their work with a more rigorous curriculum in Missouri State’s Honors College. The university will recognize 202 students who will graduate summa cum laude, 236 who will graduate magna cum laude, and 383 who will graduate cum laude.

 

Ceremonies will take place at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. at Great Southern Bank Arena on the Springfield campus.

By sport, here are Missouri State’s spring and summer student-athlete graduates (see key at bottom of page):

Baseball (6): Drake Baldwin General Business)#; Tyler Epstein (M.B.A. Business Administration); Miles Halligan (General Business); Jackson Holmes* (Economics); Dalen Stewart (Entrepreneurship)#; Tyler Tscherter (Marketing Management).

Men’s Basketball (3): Elijah Bridgers* (Exercise & Movement Science); Wesley Oba (Data Analytics Grad Certificate); Allen Udemadu* (Psychology).

Football (23): Thomas Anderson (General Studies); Brock Bagozzi* (General Business); Caden Bolz (M.S. Kinesiology); Reggie Branch* (Criminology and Criminal Justice); ob Clark (M.B.A. Business Administration); Alama Collins (General Studies, Business Principles Undergraduate Certificate); Raveion Harrell (Sports Administration); Brett Harris (General Business); Mark Hutchinson* (Communication Studies); Jakael Jackson* (Cybersecurity, Web Programming Undergraduate Certificate); D’Vontae Key (Public Relations); Hutson Lillibridge (Mechanical Engineering Technology); Celdon Manning (M.B.A. Business Administration, Project Management Grad Certificate); Lance Mason (Financial Planning); Dylan Simmons* (Fintech); Darion Smith (General Studies); Jaquez Smith (General Studies); Ja’Veo Toliver* (General Studies; Eunique Valentine (Psychology); Armon Wallace (Sports Administration); E.J. Williams* (General Studies; Ryan Williams* (General Studies); Jalen Williams* (M.P.H. Public Health, Professional Studies Grad Certificate, Public Health Core Grad Certificate).

Men’s Golf (2): Hampus Wijkstrom (M.B.A. Business Administration); Ludvig Wijkstrom* (Economics).

Men’s Soccer (1): Will Lowry (Psychology, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Criminal Investigation Undergraduate Certificate).

Men’s Swimming & Diving (6): Chris Bedsole* (Cybersecurity)##; Alex Boutin (Supply Chain, Logistics and Operations Management)###; Aiden Dunn (Computer Science, Web Programming Undergraduate Certificate); Reese Hodgins (Fintech); Brek Stukerjurgen (Construction Management); Brunno Suzuki-Tomiyama (Economics)#.

Women’s Basketball (4): Lindsey Byers (Wildlife and Fisheries Biology)#; Khloe Moad* (Criminology and Criminal Justice, Criminal Investigation Undergraduate Certificate); Paige Rocca (M.B.A. Business Administration); Lacy Stokes (Health Services).

Beach Volleyball (5): Becca Bach (Cell & Molecular Biology, Health Sciences Undergraduate Certificate, Molecular Physiology Undergraduate Certificate, Human Genetics and Genomics Undergraduate Certificate)#; Macy Blackburn* (M.P.S. Professional Studies, Sports Management Grad Certificate); Anamarie Colon-Calero (Biology Pre-Teacher Education); Riley Drew (Speech-Language Pathology)###; Olivia Rattler (Public Relations).

Women’s Golf (4): Helena Bel (Mathematics, Physics)#; Chayenne Chivrac* (Sport and Recreation Administration, Sport Administration Undergraduate Certificate)##; Kayla Pfitzner (M.B.A. Business Administration, Marketing Analytics Grad Certificate); Lilly Whitley (Psychology, Mental Health and Spirituality Undergraduate Certificate)##.

Softball (5): Mackenzie Chacon (Speech-Language Pathology)###; Kim DeBold (Computer Animation)##; Kenzie Derryberry (Exercise & Movement Science)#; Chloe Merced (Exercise Science)#; McKenzie Vaughan (Exercise & Movement Science, Health Sciences Undergraduate Certificate)##.

Volleyball (4): Maddy Bushnell (also played Beach VB) (Exercise & Movement Science)###; GG Carvacho (M.S.E.D. Elementary Education, Elementary Curriculum and Instruction Grad Certificate); Josie Halbleib* (Advertising & Promotion)#; Morgan Sprague (also played Beach VB) (Sports Medicine).

Women’s Soccer (8): Jenna Anderson (Financial Planning)###; Iraia Arrue (Cybersecurity, IT Infrastructure)##; Kaeli Benedict (Exercise & Movement Science)##; Ana Paula Fraiz (Communication Studies)#; Eydis Helgadottir Computer Science)#; Julia Kristensen* (Advertising & Promotion); Grace O’Keefe (Mechanical Engineering Technology)###; Brynna Rutherford (Cybersecurity)##.

STUNT (1): Reagan Risner* (Criminology and Criminal Justice, Victim Advocacy Undergraduate Certificate)#

Women’s Swimming & Diving (16): Grace Beahan* (M.H.A. Health Administration); Jordan Boyce (M.S.E.D. Educational Technology, Online Teaching and Learning Grad Certificate); Kelsey Boyce* (M.B.A. Business Administration, Leadership Grad Certificate); Sierra Brannan (M.B.A. Business Administration); Lauren Chaney (Psychology)#; Ashlie German (Supply Chain, Logistics and Operations Management)###; Sophia Hawley (Creative Writing)##; Cabrini Johnson (M.S. Behavior Analysis, Autism Spectrum Disorders Grad Certificate); Paige Lenahan (Drawing); Sira Limbu (Cybersecurity); Samantha Roemer (M.H.A. Health Administration); Kelly Sego (M.B.A. Business Administration); Payton Smith (Exercise & Movement Science, Foundations of Nutrition Undergraduate Certificate); Courtney Stanbury (Supply Chain, Logistics and Operations Management); Jordan Wenner (M.S.E.D. Special Education, Autism Spectrum Disorders Grad Certificate); Yuliya Zubina (M.B.A. Business Administration, Marketing Analytics Grad Certificate).

Women’s Tennis (6): Cristina Flaquer (M.S. Cell & Molecular Biology); Amy Henning (Nutrition and Dietetics, Health Sciences Undergraduate Certificate, Foundations of Nutrition Undergraduate Certificate)##; Mary Houston* (M.S.E.D. English Education); Sandra Lukacova (Marketing Management)#; Kate Miley (Agricultural Finance & Management)#; Juliette Robinson* (Corporate and Investments Finance)###.

Women’s Track & Field (11): Jordan Drum (Exercise & Movement Science)###; Kylie Ghormley (Sports Medicine); Katie Griffin (Marketing Management)##; Meghan Halstead (Entrepreneurship); Mary Margaret Harris (Psychology); Victory Ifah (Sports Medicine, Infant and Toddler Development Undergraduate Certificate); Sophie Karney (Agricultural Communications, Event Planning Undergraduate Certificate); Anna Lombardo (Exercise Science)#; Kamdyn Moody (Actuarial Mathematics)#; Jaide Rose* (M.P.S. Professional Studies, Sports Management Grad Certificate); Grace Spoonhour (Professional Sales)#.

 

#BearGrads

KEY
### Summa Cum Laude

## Magna Cum Laude

# Cum Laude

* Summer term graduate (Summer commencement ceremonies were eliminated in 2018)
 

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — During its Commencement and Reunion Weekend from May 23 to 25, Brown University will confer honorary doctorates on seven candidates who have achieved great distinction in a variety of fields. The candidates are:

• Jon Batiste — Award-winning musician
• Allyson Felix — Olympic gold medalist
• Eileen Hayes — Social services leader
• Suleika Jaouad — Author and artist
• William Kentridge — Artist
• Timothy Snyder — Historian
• Kevin Young — Award-winning poet

Recipients will receive prominent recognition at the University Ceremony on Sunday, May 25. Felix, who is a five-time Olympian and the most decorated American track and field athlete in history, will deliver the Baccalaureate address to the University’s undergraduate Class of 2025 on Saturday afternoon at the First Baptist Church in America. The ceremony will be livestreamed on Brown’s Commencement website.

Honorary degrees are awarded by the Board of Fellows of the Corporation of Brown University and are conferred by University President Christina H. Paxson during Commencement exercises.

While the Board of Fellows awards the degrees, many of the recipients were recommended by the Advisory Committee on Honorary Degrees, a faculty and student committee chaired this year by Professor of English Richard Rambuss. The committee offered recommendations for leaders who have demonstrated excellence in a variety of fields, including based on nominations received from Brown faculty, staff and students.

Honorary degree recipients do not serve as Commencement speakers; since its earliest days, Brown has reserved that honor for members of the graduating class. Additional details on Commencement forums and other events during the weekend will be posted on Brown’s Commencement website.

Honorary degree candidates

Jon Batiste
Doctor of Music
Award-winning musician 

Jon Batiste is a seven-time Grammy and Academy Award-winning singer, songwriter and composer who is among the most prolific and accomplished contemporary musicians globally.

Born in New Orleans, Batiste is known for powerful music that draws on classical, jazz, R&B and soul. He has released eight studio albums and won, among many honors, an Academy Award for “Best Original Score” for the 2020 Disney-Pixar film “Soul.” His 2021 album “We Are” was nominated for a historic 11 Grammys Awards across seven categories. In 2024, he released his most recent studio album, “Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1),” which is the first in his solo piano series, reimagining classical works through a fresh lens.

Along with his wife — author and artist Suleika Jaouad — Batiste was the subject of the Oscar and Grammy-nominated 2023 documentary “American Symphony,” which won a Grammy for “Best Music Film” along with an Oscar nomination for “Best Original Song.”

Batiste serves as a creative director for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. From 2015 until 2022, he served as the bandleader and musical director of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS. ​ 

Batiste earned a bachelor’s degree and a master of music from the Juilliard School.

Allyson Felix
Doctor of Humane Letters
Olympic gold medalist

Five-time Olympian Allyson Felix is the most decorated American track and field athlete in history.

With a record 20 world championships and 11 Olympic medals, including seven golds, Felix retired in 2022 leaving a historic legacy in competitive running. In 2024, she was elected to the International Olympic Committee, the governing body of the Olympic Games.

An influential voice in women’s athletics, Felix publicly advocated for improved maternity policies in the sports apparel industry and helped spur maternity protections for sponsored athletes. Ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, she led an initiative to create the first-ever family space in the Olympic Village to support parent-athletes during the games.

Felix is the founder of Saysh footwear for women, a company that challenges traditional gendered sneaker design, and co-founder of Always Alpha, a women’s sports management firm. She serves as an ambassador for Right to Play, which supports underserved children across the world, and co-founded the Power of She Fund at the Women’s Sports Foundation to help provide childcare support for athletes who are mothers.

Felix earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California. She and her husband live in Los Angeles with their two children.

Eileen Hayes
Doctor of Humane Letters
Social services leader

For 24 years, Eileen Hayes has served as president and CEO of Amos House, a Rhode Island social services organization that has supported generations of individuals and families.

A compassionate visionary who began her career as a social worker, Hayes helped transform Amos House from a soup kitchen to a multifaceted organization that offers employment programs, services and housing to individuals facing poverty, hunger, homelessness and addiction.

Under her leadership, Amos House launched two social enterprises, More Than a Meal Catering and Amos House Builds, both of which employ graduates of its training programs and generate income to support the organization. Its housing portfolio has grown to house hundreds of individuals, families, children and older adults in apartments, rooming houses and shelters. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization managed a warming center in Providence that served more than 200 individuals a night. 

Hayes has channeled her experience, success and dedication to serving as a mentor and trainer across her field and an adviser on program design and implementation for other organizations. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College and a master of social work from New York University. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and has four children and two grandchildren.
 

Suleika Jaouad
Doctor of Letters
Author and artist 

Suleika Jaouad is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, artist, advocate and New York Times bestselling author of “Between Two Kingdoms” and “The Book of Alchemy.”

After a leukemia diagnosis at age 22, she launched her widely read New York Times column and video series “Life, Interrupted” from her hospital bed. Her essays and reporting have appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic and Vogue.

Jaouad created the Isolation Journals, a newsletter founded at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that helps 200,000 people from around the world tap into the transformative power of creativity. She and her husband, musician Jon Batiste, are the subject of the Oscar-nominated and Grammy Award-winning documentary “American Symphony,” which portrays the artists during a year of extreme highs and lows. 

An advocate for health care reform, Jaouad served on Barack Obama’s Presidential Cancer Panel and received the Inspire Award from the National Marrow Donor Program (Be the Match) for her work to expand and diversify the national bone marrow registry.

A citizen of Tunisia, Switzerland and the United States, Jaouad attended the Juilliard School’s pre-college program for the double bass. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and an MFA from Bennington College.

William Kentridge
Doctor of Fine Arts
Artist

William Kentridge is a leading South African artist whose works have been exhibited globally. Working across drawing, writing and film, Kentridge grounds his creations in politics, science, literature and history. He is renowned for his original works for the stage, which combine performance, projections, voice and music.

Since the 1990s, Kentridge’s art has been exhibited at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

He has directed Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” Shostakovich’s “The Nose” and Alban Berg’s operas “Lulu” and “Wozzeck” at venues including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, the English National Opera in London and the Salzburg Festival. In 2023, he received an Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in opera for “Sibyl” in London.

Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, where in 2016 he co-founded the Centre for the Less Good Idea, an incubator for experimental performance. In 2024, he was an artist-in-residence at the Brown Arts Institute as part of a series to commemorate the inaugural year of Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center.

Timothy Snyder
Doctor of Letters
Historian

Timothy Snyder is a leading historian on Ukraine, Central Europe, the Soviet Union and the Holocaust who earned his bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Brown University in 1991.

An influential scholar and writer on authoritarianism, politics and health, Snyder offers insightful commentaries and in-depth historical analyses that have inspired artistic expressions ranging from film to rock opera. He has authored or edited 20 books that have been published in 40 languages. Those include “On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century,” “The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America,” and “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,” for which he won the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award.

A professor of history at Yale University, Snyder holds the inaugural chair in modern European history at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. 

Among many recognitions, he has received the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought, the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, and Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships. He is a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and head of the academic advisory council of the Ukrainian History Global Initiative. 

Snyder, who speaks five languages and reads 10 European languages, earned a Ph.D. from Oxford in addition to his degree from Brown.

Kevin Young
Doctor of Letters
Award-winning poet

Kevin Young is an acclaimed poet, essayist, poetry editor and curator who earned his master of fine arts in creative writing from Brown University in 1996. 

A prolific poet who has authored 15 books of poetry and prose and edited 11 volumes, Young is the poetry editor at the New Yorker. Among many recognitions for his books of poetry, “Stones” was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, “Book of Hours” won the 2015 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and “Jelly Roll: a blues” won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a National Book Award finalist.

Young served as director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture from 2021 to 2025, prior to which he directed the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. From 2005 to 2016, he was Candler professor and curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

A recipient of Guggenheim, Stegner and MacDowell fellowships, Young was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016 and was named a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.

Young received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University before earning an MFA from Brown.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville track and field athlete Julia Sue-Kam-Ling was voted the ASUN Field Performer of the Week Wednesday for her long jump showing at the UNF East Coast Regionals.

The junior came in first in the long jump with a 5.97m leap. Her jump also served as a season best and was .02 longer than the second-place jumper.

On the track, Sue-Kam-Ling also competed in the 100m sprint prelims. 

Sue-Kam-Ling and the rest of the Dolphin track program next competes at the ASUN Outdoor Championships starting May 17, hosted at UNF.

Poll: What Is Katie Ledecky’s Greatest World Record? (Vote Here!)

During her spectacular career, Katie Ledecky has set 17 world records – 15 in the long-course pool. Her latest world mark was produced last weekend, when the 28-year-old covered the 800-meter freestyle in 8:04.12 at the TYR Pro Series stop in Fort Lauderdale. Ledecky’s performance arrived nearly nine years after she clocked 8:04.79 at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Is Ledecky’s effort from Fort Lauderdale the greatest world record of her career? Or, is her finest global standard another swim. Maybe her 15:20.48 in the 1500 freestyle, which is 18 seconds faster than the No. 2 performer of all-time? Perhaps her 3:56.46 outing in the 400 freestyle at the Rio Games? Do you have another of Ledecky’s world records in mind?

Cast your vote in the poll below for the greatest world record by Ledecky, a future Hall of Famer and widely considered the finest female swimmer in history.

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