Ninety-six Piedmont University students received undergraduate and graduate degrees on Friday, July 21, during a commencement ceremony in the Johnny Mize Athletic Center on the Demorest campus.
During the brief ceremony, Piedmont President Dr. Marshall Criser challenged the graduates to think about not only what they want to do next but what they want to be.
“Because the discussion about what you want to be is so much broader and more encompassing about each of our selves and about this institution in terms of the values and the ideals that we’ve set that we want to achieve. And I frankly believe if we don’t set those goals, we don’t achieve them because we don’t have the plan that takes us from where we are to where we want to be in the future,” said Criser.
During his brief remarks, Dr. Criser stated that the university is getting ready to go through its next strategic planning process, “in which we’re going to define what our vision and our goals are for the future and develop the plan that takes us there.”
“As we go through this plan, I’m very cognizant that the group of people back in 2018 who created a five-year strategic plan for this university probably didn’t have on there somewhere ‘international global pandemic’; Probably didn’t have somewhere in that plan some of the changes that have happened in technology; and yet, you still have a university today in a group of individuals in our faculty and our staff – and you as students – who were able to make the adjustments because I believe we still had an aspirational goal as to what we wanted to be, not just what we wanted to do.”
The university conferred undergraduate and graduate degrees to students in education, nursing, business, and the arts.
WATCH Piedmont’s summer 2023 graduation ceremony here
