Morehead State honors graduates at Spring 2025 Commencement
Morehead State University honored approximately 700 graduates at ceremonies on May 10.
MSU celebrated these students' academic achievements in front of family, friends, loved ones, faculty, staff, students, and MSU alumni. MSU President Dr. Jay Morgan conferred the degrees and offered congratulations. Dr. Morgan also took a moment to recognize all first-generation college students and mothers in the audience, as the ceremonies took place on Mother's Day weekend.
The two ceremonies honored graduates of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, the Elmer R. Smith College of Business & Technology, the College of Science & Engineering, and the Ernst & Sara Lane Volgenau College of Education. The ceremonies also included the commissioning of ROTC officers.
Emma Brock (Class of 2025) of Corbin was the commencement speaker representing the College of Science & Engineering during the morning commencement ceremony. As an Honors Undergraduate Research Fellow, Brock received an Exceptional Merit Award at the Celebration of Student Scholarship in 2022 and 2023. She was also selected for the KYINBRE Internship at the University of Kentucky in 2023. MSU's neuroscience program named Brock the Outstanding Neuroscience Junior in 2023 and Outstanding Neuroscience Senior in 2024. Brock plans to earn a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Florida.
"I am here to remind us that we all have accomplished something great, and that is to be celebrated," Brock said. "We should not set limitations upon ourselves based on someone else's assumptions of us. We should instead remind ourselves that today we have proven ourselves capable of anything we can possibly set our minds to."
During the afternoon commencement ceremony, Hallie Adams (Class of 2025) of Flemingsburg was the commencement speaker representing the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. She was a weather anchor for MSUTV's NewsCenter her first year. She worked for four years as a reporter and board operator for Morehead State Public Radio. In the fall of 2023, Adams was a media personnel intern for the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music and began working for The Trail Blazer, Morehead State's independent, student-run newspaper. She started as a staffer and worked her way up to editor-in-chief her senior year.
"Here at Morehead State University, it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have for the major you want to enroll in. If you come in with a desire to learn and a drive to succeed, you will not fail," Adams said. "In the words of (MSU Senior Instructor of Communication) John Flavell, 'Go out there and be epic.'"
