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2,371 reasons to celebrate

By Jessie Bazan, Comm '14 | Photos by Ben Smidt

Classes are over, final papers have been submitted and gone are the stresses of final exams. To the delight of Marquette's Class of 2011, summer is slowly but surely starting to take shape. But first, there was some celebrating to do. At the end of the two-hour Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 22, these young men and women tossed their caps skyward in a jubilant celebration filled with beach balls, confetti and silly string. The cheering and clapping (and even the drone of a few plastic horns) echoed throughout the Bradley Center as the newest batch of Marquette alumni made their way out of the arena and into the streets of downtown Milwaukee.

As the full weekend of festivities winds down, here are some fun statistics about this year's Commencement celebration.

130: Spring Commencements that Marquette has hosted since its doors first opened in 1881. 

3,500: Tulip bulbs planted throughout campus to spruce up the grounds for spring and all of the end-of-the-year festivities.

2,371: Commencement participants, made up of May and August graduates, who walked across the stage on Sunday. 

42: Different states members of the Class of 2011 call home.

27: Different countries our diverse set of graduates hail from.

18,600: Seating capacity at the Bradley Center for a Golden Eagles basketball game. Approximately 10,000 of these seats were filled with Marquette families and friends during Sunday's Commencement ceremony. 

4: Honorary Marquette degrees given during the Commencement ceremony. The recipients were: Growing Power CEO and co-founder Will Allen; Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public; Catherine Rick, chief officer of the Office of Nursing Services for the Department of Veteran Affairs; and Commencement speaker David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian.

824: Days (give or take a few) the average graduating senior spent at Marquette during the past four academic years.

Countless: Congratulatory hugs, kisses, handshakes and high-fives exchanged between graduates and their families and friends as they celebrated the immense sense of achievement that comes with earning a degree from Marquette.

See more photos from this year's Commencement: