Below is a guide to the winter and spring ceremonies that will recognize you for your academic accomplishments. This page is updated as information becomes available, so check back for updates.
Winter Convocation
The College of LAS hosts a collegewide ceremony in December to recognize students earning a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in August or December of that year. Participating doctoral degree candidates will be hooded during the ceremony.
There is no university-wide commencement ceremony in December.
LAS Winter Convocation
10:00 a.m. Saturday, December 19, 2026
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
500 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana
Access instructions for Winter Convocation
About our speaker
Tom Ferrone is a winter 2001 graduate of the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois, and a 2007 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. He currently serves as Deputy General Counsel at Tempus, a Chicago-based technology and laboratory company that applies artificial intelligence and data to the field of precision medicine. He started at Tempus in 2018 as its second in-house lawyer. Before Tempus, Tom spent six years as in-house counsel to the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, the #1 physical medicine and rehabilitation hospital in the United States. He served as lead research counsel and helped the organization establish a new, state-of-the-art hospital facility in downtown Chicago combining research and clinical care. Tom also practiced law at a Chicago firm (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan) where he handled patent and other intellectual property lawsuits. Right after law school, Tom worked for Senator Richard J. Durbin in Washington DC, where he helped the Senator enact into law a new caregiver program in the VA for the families of service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Right after college, but before starting law school, he helped open a public high school in New York City, where he taught algebra and computer science for two years. Tom lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago with his family.
May commencement and convocations
Several options are available to you if you choose to participate in the May Commencement ceremonies. You may attend the university-wide commencement as well as the LAS convocation ceremony that applies to your major.
Diploma Name
Diploma names are displayed on diplomas and are used in the Commencement program, lists of graduates, and Commencement-related press releases.
Examples of diploma names include: using a middle name instead of a first name; using an abbreviated name (Tom instead of Thomas); using an Americanized name (Wendy instead of Haiyan); or using a name that better reflects one’s ethnic, racial or gender identity. If you’d like to create a diploma name, please email the Office of the Registrar (include UIN). Please be advised that in some situations, the name appearing on your diploma may need to match other legal documents you possess.
LAS convocations
- Astronomy
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Chemistry
- Communication
- Earth, Society, and Environment, School of
Atmospheric Sciences; Earth Science & Environmental Change; Earth, Society, and Environment; Geography - Economics
- English and Creative Writing
- History and Philosophy
- Integrative Biology, School of
- Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, School of
Classics, Comparative and World Literature, East Asian Languages and Cultures, French, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Interdisciplinary Studies, Linguistics, Religion, Russian, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Teaching English as a Second Language, Translation and Interpretation - Molecular and Cellular Biology, School of
- Mathematics (including Math-Computer Science)
- Physics
- Psychology
- Political Science and International Interdisciplinary Studies
African Studies, European Union Studies, Global Studies, Individual Plans of Study, International Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Political Science, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies - Sociology, Anthropology, and Interdisciplinary Studies
African American Studies, Anthropology, Gender and Women’s Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, Sociology - Statistics (including Statistics-Computer Science)
University-wide commencement ceremony
The university will hosts a university-wide commencement ceremony the morning of Saturday, May 11, 2024. Visit the Illinois Commencement website for more information.
Doctoral hooding ceremonies
Please see the Grad College's website for information.
Contact us
