COMMENCEMENT TIMES ANNOUNCED

ECU announces times for three in-person spring 2021 university commencement ceremonies

East Carolina University intends to host three in-person university ceremonies at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium on May 7 to recognize and celebrate the Class of 2021. The ceremony start times will be 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

The 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. ceremonies will be for undergraduate students only. The 5 p.m. ceremony will be for graduate and professional students. All three ceremonies will be held in compliance with all federal and UNC System guidelines regarding the evolving nature of COVID-19. Masks will be required by all graduates and attendees and social distancing guidelines will be strictly enforced.

Each degree awarding college (e.g., College of Business or College of Education) will participate in one of the two undergraduate ceremonies. The designation by college will be announced during the week of April 12-16 and will be based on the number of students completing the mandatory RSVP. To date, more than 4,000 graduates have completed the RSVP process with plans to attend the university ceremonies.

Those participating in the graduate and professional ceremony at 5 p.m. will include students earning a master’s, doctoral or professional degree.

Ticket information, including ceremony time, ticket allotment per graduate and how to secure the tickets will be sent to each graduate that completed the RSVP form by April 9th and will be sent to the email they used on the form. Any graduating students who have not submitted an RSVP by April 9 will NOT be able to participate in the spring ceremony.

Click here for the RSVP for Spring 2021 graduates. The RSVP link will only be active until April 9, 2021 at 11:59 p.m.

The Classes of 2020 are invited to attend these ceremonies as well and the ceremony they are assigned to will be based on the degree they earned in spring or fall 2020.  For instance, a spring 2020 engineering graduate will participate in the same ceremony as the engineers for the class of spring 2021. The RSVP process for the classes of 2020 can be found on the ECU Commencement website.

Despite the easing of some restrictions by the North Carolina Governor’s Office, ECU will not host any in-person college or department ceremonies for spring 2021. The university continues developing these plans and more details will be shared with graduates and families as plans are finalized.

For questions, email commencement@ecu.edu.