Commencement

Family, friends and special guests of graduates are invited to commencement with no ticket requirements. Seating at Burke-Tarr Stadium is first come, first served. Umbrellas are permitted.

Handicap parking is available near the intersection of Davis St. and High Ave with limited handicap overflow available in the lower MSAC lot. All other parking lots on campus will be open for guests.

Click here for Campus Parking Map

Security is provided by Carson-Newman Department of Safety and the Jefferson City Police Department. There is no clear bag policy, but all bags are subject to search. We prohibit the presence and use of knives, guns, and other weapons on campus.

Guests are welcome to take photos and video during commencement. Unfortunately, guests will not be allowed on the field during the ceremony. Guests in attendance acknowledge and agree that photographs, video recordings or other media may be taken during the ceremony and used by Carson-Newman for promotional, marketing, and advertising purposes.

Only service animals are allowed at Commencement.

Guests are invited to bring bottled water. Self-serve water will be available in the stadium. Concessions will not be available. Trash bins will be located in the stadium.

Each graduating class has consistently expressed a strong desire to celebrate Commencement together and on campus. Our University Leadership Team will closely monitor weather conditions throughout the week of graduation. 

If weather conditions require us to implement our rain plan, a LiveSafe notification will be sent to all graduates. Updates will also be shared across our social media platforms and on the university homepage (www.cn.edu). 

The rain plan venue is located at Walters State Great Smoky Mountains Expo Center at 1615 Pavilion Drive, White Pine, TN 37890.

Barry “Butch” Wilmore
NASA Astronaut, Captain, United States Navy

Tennessee native Barry E. Wilmore (Captain, U.S. Navy, Ret.) was born in Murfreesboro and raised in Mt. Juliet. Selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2000, he is a veteran of three spaceflights and has accumulated a total of 464 days in space. As part of Expedition 41, he served as flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, and then as commander of Expedition 42 which led to 167 days in space. During Expedition 72, as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 crew, Wilmore completed a spacewalk with NASA astronaut Suni Williams, leading him to have logged over 32 hours of time in five spacewalks. A U.S. Navy combat veteran, he has accumulated more than 8,000 flight hours and 663 carrier landings, all in tactical jet aircraft, and is a graduate of the United States Naval Test Pilot School. He flew missions in support of Operations Desert Storm, Desert Shield and Southern Watch over the skies of Iraq, as well as missions over Bosnia in support of United States and NATO interests. He is a graduate of Tennessee Technological University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.