2009: By the numbers

Number of graduates:

(includes May graduates only; does not include Dec. and Aug. 2008 graduates)

941Undergraduates
150Graduate School, both campuses
159School of Law
108Babcock Graduate School of Management
152School of Medicine (including Physician Assistant Studies)
22Divinity School
4Number of graduates in first graduating class, 1839
1Number of graduates in 1843
1964First black graduate, Edward Reynolds
20Number of graduates in the Divinity School’s first graduating class, in 2002

Honorary degrees:

8Number 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:

12,000Number of chairs set up on Hearn Plaza
50′ x 100′Size of striped 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)
1957First class to graduate on the “new” campus
1966First year Commencement was held on the Quad (from 1957 to 1965
Commencement was held in Wait Chapel)
2.5 hrsApproximate length of Commencement ceremony
2 hrsLength of Commencement speech delivered in 1858 by Solomon Sampson Satchwell
10,000Number of printed programs
39Consecutive years Sun Printing Company of Winston-Salem has printed the Commencement program
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.
1981Last class to receive sheepskin diplomas
$40Cost of an optional sheepskin diploma in 1982
1975First woman and first black, U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (D-Texas), to speak at Commencement
2Number of black women who have spoken at Commencement (Barbara Jordan, 1975, and Maya Angelou, 1985)
2Number of times Bill Moyers has given the Commencement address (1970 and 1984)