Commencement 2006

Number of graduates:

1,015Undergraduates
147Graduate School, Reynolda Campus
34Graduate School, Bowman Gray Campus
178School of Law
299Babcock Graduate School of Management
97School of Medicine
47Physician Assistant Program
32Divinity School
4Number of graduates in first graduating class, 1839
1Number of graduates in 1843
20Number of graduates in the Divinity School’s first graduating class, in 2002

Honorary degrees:

4Number of honorary degrees awarded
11Number of honorary degrees awarded in 1934, the most ever
1849Year first honorary degree was awarded, to Wake Forest founder and first president Samuel Wait

Other information:

10,000Number of chairs set up on Hearn Plaza
50′ x 100′Size of striped tent
48Number of man-hours to set-up tent
1989Year a rain and wind storm knocked down the tent the night before Graduation; the program proceeded on schedule, without a tent
3Number of times rain has forced Commencement inside (1991, 1983, 1973)
1Number of times Commencement has been held off campus (1991, Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum)
1966First year Commencement was held on the Quad (from 1957 to 1965
Commencement was held in Wait Chapel)
3 hrsApproximate length of Commencement ceremony
2 hrsLength of Commencement speech delivered in 1858 by Solomon Sampson Satchwell
10,500Number of printed programs
1Number of graduates accidentally left out of last year’s program
5Number of programs reprinted with that graduates’ name included
36Consecutive years Sun Printing Company of Winston-Salem has printed the Commencement program
47Number of University police and security officers on duty during Commencement
18Number of Winston-Salem police officers and Forsyth County sheriff deputies on duty
18Number of contract security officers on duty
14Number of paramedics on hand
8,500Number of bottles of water distributed in 1993, when temperatures soared to the high 90s during the ceremony
52°FTemperature during the ceremony in 1999 (plus a cool, rainy mist)
1987Last class to graduate under the elms before the last of the diseased elm trees were removed and replaced with ash trees.