FSU College of Arts and Sciences set to honor new graduates Dec. 12
Florida State University will celebrate its Fall 2025 graduates Friday, Dec. 12 with three commencement ceremonies at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center.
College of Arts and Sciences graduates will participate in two ceremonies on Friday. Doctoral students will be hooded at the 9 a.m. ceremony while undergraduate and master’s students will cross the stage during the 7 p.m. ceremony. Nearly a quarter of the 2,982 degrees FSU will award this fall are to undergraduate and graduate students from arts and sciences disciplines.
The evening ceremony will feature a commencement address by retired FSU men’s basketball head coach J. Leonard Hamilton. Hamilton retired following the 2024-2025 season after 23 years as head coach and is the winningest coach in program history.
“I am always pleased to participate in commencement activities, which provide unique opportunities to formally congratulate our graduates,” said Sam Huckaba, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Fall commencement is enhanced by its alignment with the holiday season, adding festivity to an already special occasion, and it will provide a special platform to celebrate the accomplishments of our new graduates.”
Madelyn Luther, Cat Cox, and Kara Crane are among the college’s approximately 720 Fall 2025 graduates. All three will receive bachelor’s degrees.
Luther, who hails from Fruitland Park, Florida, will earn dual bachelor’s degrees in editing, writing, and, media through the Department of English and environment and society with the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy.
She was awarded a Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Development IDEA grant for her Honors in the Major thesis, “The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and the World People’s Conference on Climate Change: An Analysis of Climate Policy Discourse.” Luther presented this research, which explores climate discourse from an interdisciplinary lens, at the 2025 President’s Showcase of Undergraduate Research.
“It was wonderful to present my research, and I was thrilled to have friends, family, and professors stop by the showcase to see my research,” said Luther, who earned the John and Susan Ausley Endowment Fund Undergraduate Award in Spring 2025 in support of her research. “My most meaningful opportunity at FSU has been my thesis — it feels like a neatly-tied bow that brings together my passions and crafts into a single narrative.”
Luther also served in several leadership roles with the Undergraduate Law Review at FSU, and after graduating, she plans to take a gap year to study for the law school admission test and publish her thesis.
Cox, a Bradenton, Florida native, will earn her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Anthropology and is involved as an undergraduate researcher with the Social Health and Immunology Research Lab, led by assistant professor of anthropology Eric Shattuck. Cox also directed an independent study that examined metric and non-metric traits of teeth to focus on the possibilities of identifying the sex of an individual looking at only the development of teeth.
During the fall, Cox served as president of the Anthropology Society at FSU, or ASFSU. She led ASFSU workshops and community events while initiating collaboration efforts with the Anthropology Graduate Student Association to foster relationships among FSU students interested in anthropology. In 2024, she served as both the treasurer and secretary.
“The opportunities for connections when it came to my journey with research, applications, field schools, and more have been very meaningful,” Cox said. “FSU’s networking opportunities have been amazing, especially with ASFSU, as I’ve enjoyed guiding undergraduates in their anthropology journeys.”
Cox will work as a medical assistant in Bradenton starting in the spring while studying for the medical school admission test and applying to medical schools to work toward becoming a forensic pathologist.
Crane, a Lake Mary, Florida native, will earn her bachelor’s degree with a double major in linguistics from the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics and neuroscience from the Program in Neuroscience, an interdisciplinary program with participation from the Department of Biological Science, Department of Psychology, and the Department of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Medicine.
“My favorite part about my studies at FSU has been the amazing and supportive professors and students that have aided me in achieving my goals,” Crane said. “It’s been great to learn from distinguished professors and to gain a better understanding of complex topics. My comprehension of scientific literature has grown so much in the time I’ve been at FSU, and my passions have become deeper and more informed.”
After graduating, Crane will continue to explore post-graduate research opportunities and graduate programs to further pursue the fields of neuroscience, linguistics, or an adjacent field as she evaluates her career goals.
For more about FSU’s Fall 2025 commencement activities, a full schedule of events, and livestream links, visit commencement.fsu.edu.