Make Sure Your Family Knows When You’re Getting Your Diploma!

By Ken Mattsson | February 22, 2017

Hello Graduating Graduate Students!

Cathy Merlo, Senior Associate Director and Ken Mattsson, Associate Director, both of the Graduate Center for Career Development, will be the name readers for the F.W. Olin Graduate School Commencement on Saturday, May 20, 2017. We want to make sure that we pronounce your names correctly so that you family and friends will recognize that you are walking across the stage and receiving your diploma. We will be working very hard to learn all of your names and pronunciations correctly, and you can help us by giving us the information that we need to make you look good on your special day!

The Registrar’s Office will be sending out information for you to supply information, and the deadline for that is March 31, 2017. When you fill out that information, if you can notate your name in the following way, it will make it easier for us:

Syllables: Many students have long names, and it will be easier if we know how many there are, so please separate the syllables with dashes (e.g. Tachasirinugune as day-sha-si-ri-nu-gun)
Emphasis/Stress: Different cultures put the spoken stress on different syllables of a name, so if it’s important, capitalize the stressed syllable (e.g. Vismaya as VIS-ma-ya instead of vis-MA-ya)
Tones: Especially for Chinese names, if you could notate the tones of the names. We’ll try to say them correctly! (i.e. Ma QiZhe (马启哲) as Ma3 Qi3Zhe2, or Mah Chi-Juh (馬啟哲) as Mah3 Chi3-Juh2)

Please fill out the information in the Registrar’s request by March 31, 2017. Between April 1 and May 17, if you wish to give us more information to make sure that we understand, you have a number of ways to do that:

Drop by to speak with us at one of the following events (exact dates to be confirmed):
- Monday, April 10, The International Student Dinner, Knight Auditorium
- Wednesday, May 3, The Alumni & Friends Champaign Toast, Knight Auditorium
Send Ken or Cathy an email
Call and leave a voicemail (after 7 p.m.) with information for Ken at 781-239-5957 or Cathy at 781-239-3872.

Note: Ken will be reading the names for the Master of Science in Accounting, Master of Science in Finance, Master of Science in Management in Entrepreneurial Leadership graduates, as well as the first half of the MBA graduates (approximately up to the letter J), and Cathy will be reading the last half of the MBA graduates. The final division of names will happen shortly before Commencement.

Graduate Blog / Graduate Life