Syracuse Sun

A special ceremony was recently held to honor around 200 doctoral candidates who achieved candidacy status over the past year at the University. The event, hosted by the Graduate School, took place on March 28 at the National Veterans Resource Center.

“This is a major milestone on the path to a Ph.D.,” said Peter Vanable, dean of the Graduate School. “As these students now turn their attention fully to their dissertations, we wanted to take a moment to honor them for the many hours of hard work they have already invested in their doctoral education, and to cheer them on towards timely completion of their degree.”

Vanable provided opening remarks at the half-day event, which also included the awarding of certificates of recognition to attendees. The ceremony gathered doctoral candidates, advisors, and academic leaders from across the campus.

The celebration offered breakout sessions on topics pertinent to doctoral candidates. Glenn Wright, executive director of professional and career development in the Graduate School, led a panel on “Planning and Writing Your Dissertation.” Panelists included Heidi Hehnly, Yiling Lan, Mary Beth Monroe, and Nghia Le Ba Thai.

Another discussion focused on “Humanities, Social Sciences and Other Fields,” moderated by Qingyang Liu, with Jin Lei, Fasika Melese, Patrick Berry, and Zakery Munoz as panelists.

The Graduate School intends to make the doctoral candidate recognition event a yearly tradition.