More than 1,600 students to graduate at Wright State’s 2023 spring commencement ceremonies

Wright State will hold commencement ceremonies for the Lake Campus on April 27 and for its graduate programs on April 28 and undergraduate programs on April 29 at the Wright State Nutter Center.

More than 1,600 students are expected to graduate during Wright State University’s spring commencement ceremonies on April 27, 28 and 29.

The 1,603 graduates from the class of 2023 graduates will join more than 120,000 Wright State alumni who are making a difference throughout Raider Country, all over Ohio, across the nation and around the world.

The featured speaker at the April 29 ceremony will be Sarah Hackenbracht, who will receive an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. Hackenbracht, who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wright State in 2003, is the president and CEO of the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association.

The ceremonies will also feature a short congratulatory video from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

The Lake Campus will hold its commencement ceremony on Thursday, April 27, at 5:30 p.m. at Romer’s Celina Ballroom, 1100 S. Main Street.

Wright State will hold two spring commencement ceremonies in the Wright State University Nutter Center:

Graduate program: Friday, April 28, at 7 p.m.

Undergraduate program: Saturday, April 29, at 10 a.m.

Tickets are not required, but graduates are asked to limit the number of guests to no more than 14 people so that everyone can be accommodated. Seating at the Nutter Center will be first-come, first-served. Doors will open 90 minutes prior to the start of each ceremony.

The commencement ceremonies can be watched online at wright.edu/streaming and on the university’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. Recorded videos of the ceremonies will also be available to watch on Wright State’s YouTube channel after the ceremonies.

The spring class of 2023 includes graduates with 1,111 bachelor’s degrees, 476 master’s degrees, 16 doctoral degrees and 33 associate degrees.

The classes feature 251 international students from 21 different countries. India boasts the largest number of international graduates, with 209.

The two youngest graduating students are 18, earning a bachelor’s degree in German and a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership. The oldest graduate is 65, earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Graduates by college:

• College of Engineering and Computer Science: 355
• College of Health, Education and Human Services: 370
• College of Liberal Arts: 233
• College of Science and Mathematics: 215
• Raj Soin College of Business: 184
• Lake Campus: 182
• Boonshoft School of Medicine: 68 (bachelor’s and master’s degree only)

The ceremonies will also be broadcast live on WSU-TV on Time Warner Cable channel 21.105 in the university dorms and Fairborn and regionally on AT&T Uverse channel 99 in the Dayton tab.

Notable graduates from the class of 2023

Michelle Rings will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a minor in health communication.

Michelle Rings

Michelle Rings will receive a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the College of Health, Education and Human Services and a minor in health communication from the College of Liberal Arts.

Rings, who hails from the Cleveland area, has already secured her first nursing job at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic. She was offered the position following a summer externship for students who are entering their final year of nursing school.

During her time at Wright State, Rings served as president and treasurer of the Omicron Delta Kapa honor society, volunteered with Athletes in Action and was the team captain of the women’s soccer team.

Like most student-athletes, Rings said one of her biggest challenges was time management but noted that both the coaching staff and nursing faculty have been very accommodating.

She said one of the main takeaways from her time at Wright State is the impression of being part of a community that is bigger than herself, both on the soccer field and as a nursing student — something that has helped to prepare her for what lies ahead.

“When I worked at the Cleveland Clinic, they were impressed by how much I knew and how well trained I was, and I realized at that moment that everything that Wright State has given me up until this point has been put to good use,” Rings said.

Christopher Broach will receive a bachelor’s degree in management information systems at commencement.

Christopher Broach

Christopher Broach will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from the Raj Soin College of Business.

Broach grew up in Dayton. After graduating in 2014 from the David H. Ponitz Career Technology Center, where he studied biotechnology, he spent four years in the U.S. Air Force, serving as a nuclear weapons technician stationed in Minot, North Dakota.

After leaving the Air Force, Broach enrolled at the Raj Soin College of Business in 2019 as a first-generation college student. He was awarded the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) scholar, the beneficiary of a National Science Foundation-funded program that supports historically underrepresented students in the STEM fields.

Broach said the scholarship allowed him to focus more on a research project predicting cancer in organ transplant patients.

“We are trying to determine which ones are going to tell us they might cause cancer,” he said. “We are trying to build predictive models that will give us a number.”

During the summer before his senior year, Broach interned at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, working in data management at the Life Cycle Management Center, which is charged with managing weapon systems from their inception to retirement.

Olivia Bruno will receive a bachelor’s degree in dance.

Olivia Bruno

Olivia Bruno will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in dance from the College of Liberal Arts.

Bruno, who grew up in Oakwood, began training in ballet at the age of 2 and has been striving to become a professional dancer since she was 9. She began training at the Pontecorvo Ballet Studios and has also performed with Dayton Ballet’s second company, Dayton Ballet II, an audition-only preprofessional training program.

Bruno interned with the Nashville Ballet Company and then joined BalletMet in Columbus before enrolling at Wright State.

She finally came full circle when she joined Dayton Ballet for its 2022–2023 season.

Bruno said had she not gone to Wright State the opportunity to dance with Dayton Ballet would have been a lot harder to obtain.

“Wright State has set up a partnership for students to go down a path where they are making connections with Dayton Ballet. Without that, I really would have been on my own,” she said. “There’s not really a place in the world for people who are in between their professional life and their student life. So, it’s kind of bridged that gap for me, so that I could transition from student to professional and make those connections.”