Graduation Events

Blessing of the Graduates

One of the great traditions at McAfee is the annual Blessing of the Graduates held during the final chapel service of the Spring Semester. This year, this special service will be held on Tuesday, April 22, 2024 in Room 126 from 11:30-12:30pm with a reception to follow from 12:30-1:15pm. Graduates, please plan to attend in person or virtually via Zoom to receive a blessing from your McAfee community and share about your own experience in this place and offer gratitude to your community. Community, please plan to attend and offer a blessing to this year’s graduating class. This service will honor all graduating M.Div., M.A.C.M., M.T.S., and D.Min. students. Graduates, please RSVP to Amanda Coe Burton to let us know if you will be attending in person or virtually.

McAfee’s Commissioning Service will be May 9, 2025

The McAfee Class of 2025 Commissioning reception and worship service will take place on Friday, May 9, 2025. We hope you will join us for this grand time of celebrating all the hard work and accomplishments of our graduates.

 

At this event, all graduating students will be recognized and receive gifts from the school. We will present student awards and the Doctor of Ministry students will be hooded by their faculty supervisors. At the end of the event, we will take a class photograph. Doctor of Ministry students will need to order and bring their regalia for the hooding ceremony.  All other graduates will not need regalia for this event.

Reception in the Fellowship Hall at 9:45 a.m.
(Reservations required, details to follow in the Spring)
Smoke Rise Baptist Church
5901 Hugh Howell Road
Stone Mountain, GA 30087

Commissioning Service at Smoke Rise Baptist Church Sanctuary at 11:00 a.m.
No reservations are needed for the Commissioning Service in the Sanctuary.
Smoke Rise Baptist Church
5901 Hugh Howell Road
Stone Mountain, GA 30087

Commencement will be Saturday, May 10, 2025

1:00pm at Gas South Arena
Duluth, Georgia

You can find more information about graduation festivities here. Information about this event, including ticketing, ordering regalia, etc., will come from the Atlanta Registrar’s Office if you indicated you will participate in Commencement on your Application for Graduation.

 

Final Steps For Graduates

Graduation Application
You should have received a notification in your My Mercer portal to submit an Application for Graduation. If you have not completed an application, please do so ASAP. You must complete and submit the application in order to graduate. The application is free and takes less than 2 minutes to complete. This is where you will indicate if you plan to participate in Commencement, how you want your name to show in the graduation program, and what city you want listed as your hometown. If you have any questions, please contact the Atlanta Registrars Office.

Photos for Class Composite
Every year, McAfee gifts each graduate with a photo composite of the class suitable for framing. This composite will also hang on the walls at McAfee in perpetuity. To make this happen, we need each of you to email a picture of yourself.  We will offer a free opportunity for professional photographs during the annual Self Lectures event in February 2025.  Please plan to have your photo take on Monday, February 10, 3:15 to 4:15pm.

If you are unable to attend on February 10, please submit, via email, a photograph of yourself.  The photo must be a color head shot that includes the top of your shoulders against a neutral/plain background in .jpeg or .png format. Most of the cameras on your phones will take a picture of high enough quality for these purposes. Make sure you are well-lit and do not send a selfie. Please have another person take the picture for you. Please email your picture to Amanda Coe Burton.