Auburn spring commencement ceremonies to take place May 6-9

Auburn University’s spring commencement exercises will take place May 6-9, featuring a keynote address by Dave Clark, an Auburn alumnus and chief executive officer of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon on Friday, May 6.

The spring commencement weekend begins at 5 p.m. Friday, May 6, in Jordan-Hare Stadium with a ceremony that will feature the conferral of degrees, greetings by university officials, the recognition of students graduating with academic honors and the keynote by Clark. Families and guests can attend the Friday event, with gates opening at 3 p.m. The ceremony will be streamed live on the university’s commencement website.

Clark, a native of Orange Park, Florida, is returning to give the keynote to his alma mater, where he graduated in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in music education. A member of the Auburn University Marching Band, Clark spent a year as a middle school band director following his graduation from Auburn. He then enrolled at the University of Tennessee to pursue a Master of Business Administration in logistics and transportation. Clark—widely regarded as one of the industry’s most influential thought-leaders—has held a variety of roles at Amazon, including serving as senior vice president of worldwide operations. In that role, Clark spearheaded the launch of Amazon Robotics and grew the company’s transportation fleet to include Amazon’s own planes, trailers and last-mile delivery vehicles to speed up order delivery times for customers. Clark currently oversees more than one million employees and partners across Amazon’s operations, retail, technology and marketing divisions, to name a few.

In addition to Friday’s offerings, commencement weekend will continue with individual college ceremonies taking place on Saturday, May 7, in Neville Arena, with doors opening at 7 a.m. Ceremony start times for Saturday will be as follows: 8 a.m. for the College of Agriculture, College of Architecture, Design and Construction and the College of Education; 9:45 a.m. for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering; 11:45 a.m. for the College of Nursing, College of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, College of Sciences and Mathematics and College of Human Sciences; 1:35 p.m. for the Harbert College of Business; 4 p.m. for doctoral candidates; 5 p.m. for master's candidates; and 6:45 p.m. for the College of Liberal Arts.

The commencement weekend will conclude with ceremonies for the Harrison College of Pharmacy and the College of Veterinary Medicine on Monday, May 9 at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.

In total, Auburn will award 4,625 degrees, including 110 doctoral degrees, 748 master’s degrees, 259 professional degrees, 11 education specialist degrees and 3,497 bachelor’s degrees.

For more information—including historical information about the commencement ceremony, academic regalia, prior speakers and other details—visit auburn.edu/commencement.