Dec. 16, 2016
THE FLATS – Twenty-two Georgia Tech student-athletes will be conferred degrees during the Institute’s fall commencement on Saturday morning at McCamish Pavilion.
The student-athletes that officially become Georgia Tech alumni this weekend include: Marcus Allen (football — industrial engineering), Nick Brigham (football — business administration), Benjamin Chang (cheerleading — electrical and computer engineering), Bobby Cookson (cheerleading — psychology), Julian Darden (track and field — biomedical engineering), P.J. Davis (football — business administration), Eason Fromayan (football — business administration), Youssef Hammoud (swimming and diving — computer science), Roberto Hinojosa (football — industrial engineering), Travis Jorgenson (men’s basketball — business administration), Francis Kallon (football — literature, media and communication), Michael Muns (football — civil engineering), 2016 Georgia Tech Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Eric Patterson (baseball — business administration), Nathan Rakitt (men’s tennis — industrial engineering), Rod Rook-Chungong (literature, media and communication), Efrat Rotsztejn (swimming and diving — business administration), Rand Rowland (men’s basketball — business administration), Yuval Safra (swimming and diving — business administration), Erika Staskevicius (chemical and biomolecular engineering), Carly Sweeney (swimming and diving — business administration), Ashley Uhl (track and field — aerospace engineering) and Kaitlyn Wilmer-Fierro (cheerleading — biomedical engineering).
On Friday morning, Georgia Tech athletics honored its 22 soon-to-be alums during a graduation brunch in the Letterwinners Lounge at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Speakers included director of athletics Todd Stansbury, men’s tennis head coach Kenny Thorne and Letterwinners Club president Ken Southerland (all of which are Georgia Tech graduates and letterwinners themselves), as well as several of the graduating student-athletes.
The event culminated with Stansbury presenting each graduate with a gold sash that that identifies them as student-athletes during the commencement ceremony, which is set for Saturday at 9 a.m. Guest tickets are required for entry but the ceremony will be streamed live at commencement.gatech.edu>.
Academic success has long been a staple of Georgia Tech athletics. In the latest data released by the NCAA, Georgia Tech boasts an 87-percent Graduation Success Rate (an all-time high at Tech) and 13 of its 15 sports programs have Academic Progress Rates of 984 or higher (out of 1,000), including four teams whose APRs rank among the top 10 percent nationally in their respective sports (football — 987, golf — 1,000, men’s swimming and diving — 1,000 and volleyball — 1,000).
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