Hats off to the graduates: University's commencement ceremonies May 11, 17 and 18
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Kansas State University's May 2019 commencement speakers. Top row, from left: Robert Wood, James Haymaker, Robert Larson and Michelle Munson. Middle row, from left: Bill Snyder, Joe Hubener, Charlie Morrison and Rick Malir. Bottom row, from left: Venki Chandrashekar and Wayne Harms. | Download the photos and captions.
MANHATTAN — Kansas State University commencement ceremonies will be Saturday, May 11, at Kansas State University Polytechnic Campus in Salina and Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18, on the Manhattan campus.
The class of 2019 is the 152nd to graduate from Kansas State University. In all, more than 3,250 students are candidates for graduation. To be awarded will be more than 2,300 bachelor's degrees, nearly 100 doctoral degrees, nearly 700 master's degrees, and more than 100 students will receive a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.
Commencement speakers include two noted restaurateurs, an honorary degree recipient, the winningest football coach in university history, a former Wildcat quarterback and several notable Kansas State University alumni.
A live webcast of the ceremonies will be available at k-state.edu/graduation/. A virtual commencement ceremony for the nearly 360 students earning their degrees through distance education is available at dce.k-state.edu/students/commencement/.
Commencement ceremonies kick off at 10:30 a.m. in the Student Life Center on the Kansas State Polytechnic Campus. Robert Wood, chief operating officer of the Hearts for Hearing Foundation, will serve as commencement speaker. The nonprofit foundation works with children and adults with hearing loss. A 1980 graduate of Kansas State Polytechnic's forerunner, the Kansas Technical Institute, Wood served as the campus's 2018 Alumni Fellow.
Graduate degrees will be awarded May 17 on the Manhattan campus. Commencement for the Graduate School will be at 1 p.m. in Bramlage Coliseum, while commencement for the College of Veterinary Medicine will be at 3:30 p.m. in McCain Auditorium. Mark Hutton, Wichita, a member of the Kansas Board of Regents, will represent the board at both ceremonies.
At the Graduate School commencement, James "Jim" Haymaker, retired Cargill corporate vice president of strategy and business development, will receive an honorary degree from his alma mater and serve as commencement speaker. Haymaker earned bachelor's degrees in economics and French from Kansas State University in 1969. He joined Cargill in 1973 as a financial analyst and rose through ranks, retiring in 2011. He and his wife have supported several scholarships for Kansas State University students. Haymaker's service to the university includes being a member of the KSU Foundation board of trustees and on the advisory councils for the university's economics department and the Johnson Cancer Research Center. His many honors from the university include being named the College of Business Administration's Financial Executives Hall of Fame in 2005, the 2013 Alumni Fellow for the College of Arts and Sciences and the 2015 Distinguished Alumnus of the economics department.
Robert Larson, the Edgar E. and Elizabeth Coleman chair of food production medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine, will be the college's commencement speaker. Larson provides around 550 hours of classroom instruction to veterinary students each year.
Undergraduates on the Manhattan campus will receive degrees on May 18. The following is the schedule of ceremonies and speaker for each college:
• The College of Arts and Sciences, 8:30 a.m., Bramlage Coliseum. Alumna Michelle Munson will be the commencement speaker. Munson, who earned a Goldwater Scholarship while an undergraduate at Kansas State University, is the co-founder and CEO of Eluvio, a software startup.
• College of Architecture, Planning & Design, 10 a.m., McCain Auditorium. Bill Snyder, the winningest coach in Kansas State football history and member of the College Football Hall of Fame, will be the speaker. Snyder, who retired in December 2018, led the Wildcats to two Big 12 championships and was a five-time national coach of the year and seven-time Big 12 coach of the year.
• College of Education, 11 a.m., Bramlage Coliseum. Joe Hubener, social studies teacher at Clearwater High School, will be the speaker. Hubener, a 2015 Kansas State University alumnus, is a recipient of a 2019 Horizon Award, which is the Kansas State Department of Education's highest recognition program for exemplary first-year teachers. He also is a former quarterback of the university's football team.
• College of Business Administration, 12:30 p.m., Bramlage Coliseum. Charlie Morrison, chairman and CEO of Wingstop Inc., will be the speaker. A Kansas State University alumnus, Morrison joined Wingstop in 2012 and has led its expansion from around 500 restaurants to more than 1,200 restaurants across the U.S. and in nine countries.
• College of Agriculture, 2:30 p.m., Brmalage Coliseum. Rick Malir, founder and CEO of City Barbeque, will be the speaker at commencement A Kansas State University alumnus, Malir started City Barbecue 20 years ago and now has restaurants in seven states and more than 1,400 team members.
• College of Human Ecology, 4:30 p.m., Bramlage Coliseum. Venki Chandrashekar, general manager of specialty chemicals for ChevronPhillips Chemical Company LP, will be the speaker. A Kansas State University alumnus, Chandrashekar oversees all commercial aspects and profit and loss responsibilities of the global company with teams in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
• Carl R. Ice College of Engineering, 6:30 p.m., Bramlage Coliseum. Wayne Harms, retired vice president of ExxonMobil, will be the speaker. Harms joined ExxonMobil after graduating from Kansas State University with a chemical engineering degree. His 30-year career with the company included stops across the U.S. and in Hong Kong and Qatar.
DVDs of the ceremonies may be ordered through the K-State Campus Store at 800-KSU-CATS or 785-532-6583.
Commissioning ceremonies for the university's graduating Air Force and Army ROTC cadets will both be May 17 in the K-State Student Union. The Army ROTC ceremony will be at 10 a.m. in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union and the Air Force ROTC ceremony will be at 11 a.m. in the Main Ballroom at the Union.
