News and College Life

A proud PhD candidate looks to the crowd while being hooded during MSU's fall doctoral commencement ceremony. 

Two students lock arms to help prevent eachother from falling as they walk to their commencement ceremony.

Illinois State University students embraced the heavy snowstorm conditions during their graduation in early December.  Here, students are seen walking from the organizing area to the arena where the commencement ceremony is held.

After receiving his diploma, Ben Slavin was surprised off-stage by his brother, U.S. Army Sgt. Stevie Slavin, who managed to return home from deployment in time for Ben’s graduation. The brothers were able to reunite at the ceremony after more than a year apart. 

A veteran salutes the TV camera while walking in during commencement. Our school has approximately 1,800 veteran students comprising about 5% of the student body and has been regularly recognized for being a veteran friendly campus, achieving a 70% six-year graduation rate. 

The college president addresses the crowd at winter commencement. 

A student waits to hear her name read during the Arkansas State University Fall 2025 Morning Commencement Ceremony at First National bank Arena on December 13, 2025. 

H = P and D translates to Humor equals Pain and Distance. That's what psychotherapist Elcha Buckman, speaking with students after class, told  those gathered in Associate Professor of German Jakub Kazecki's first year seminar on Humor in Literature and Visual Media. Buckman, a guest in the class,  discussed her work on humor in couple therapy, and passed around her book “The Handbook of Humor: Clinical Applications in Psychotherapy."

 

Three students take on a hill, all on one sled. 

The college president joined varsity squash student-athletes for the team’s open campus study break. While it technically wasn’t a study break for him, "it was a perfect work break, for me," the president said.