Class of 2025 Is the Largest in University History, With About 1,600 Graduates

UW–Porter Falls conferred about 1,600 degrees at spring commencement on Saturday, the largest graduating class in the university’s history. The total was 1,604 when the registrar closed the list on Friday: 1,451 bachelor’s degrees and 153 master’s degrees. Graduate students were hooded at a separate ceremony Friday evening.

Two ceremonies in Ironclad Fieldhouse divided the class by college. The largest programs in the class were nursing, mechanical engineering, business administration, elementary education and cybersecurity. About a third of the graduates were the first in their families to earn a bachelor’s degree, and about 27 percent had transferred from a two-year college.

The commencement address was given by Dr. Josephine Reinholt ’96, a nursing graduate who now runs the emergency department at a regional hospital in Lake City. She told graduates about her first night shift as a new nurse, when she called the charge nurse four times to ask questions she already knew the answers to.

“The fifth time I didn’t call. I just did it, and I was right. Nobody tells you that the day you stop asking for permission is a regular Tuesday. Yours is coming. You will not notice it until later.”

— Dr. Josephine Reinholt ’96, commencement speaker

Among the graduates:

• Abdirahman Yusuf, a manufacturing engineering graduate who started at Porter as an English-language learner and finished with a 3.81 GPA and a job offer from his co-op employer.
• The Halvorsrud triplets of Cedar Bluff, who graduated in nursing, construction management and graphic design. Their parents had asked for adjacent seats and were told, politely, that the ceremony is organized by college.
• Nine members of the women’s cross-country team, last fall’s conference champions, who carried a small banner reading “BY THREE POINTS.”

Chancellor Dr. Elaine Vandehey conferred the degrees and gave the charge to graduates. As she has done at every ceremony since 2019, she asked them to stand and face the families behind them before they left the floor.

The ceremonies are archived on the commencement livestream page. Diplomas are mailed within eight weeks of final grades. Graduates who are still job hunting can use Career Services free for life. Details for December’s ceremony are on the commencement page.

Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu