Arts and Sciences honors new graduates during FSU summer commencement ceremonies

Florida State University will celebrate its Summer 2026 graduates Friday, July 31, 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 2,891 degrees FSU will award this summer are to undergraduate and graduate students from Arts and Sciences disciplines.

The afternoon ceremony will feature a commencement address by Allen Durham, a Florida State University alumnus and president of United Badges Insurance Services who oversees the university's iconic Osceola and Renegade tradition, and the evening ceremony will feature Brad Schmidt, Department of Psychology chair and FSU's 2026-2027 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor, the highest honor bestowed by FSU faculty on one of their own.

“Summer graduation is smaller than spring, but no less festive,” said Sam Huckaba, College of Arts and Sciences dean. “We’re always pleased to help families and friends celebrate the crowning achievements of a fresh slate of FSU graduates and to mark the start of next phases for our newest alumni. They’ll always be able to call FSU and the College of Arts and Sciences their home.”

Maxine Mandt, Harrison Betz, and Jaehoon Jang are among the college’s approximately 618 Summer 2026 graduates. Mandt will receive a bachelor’s degree while Betz will receive a master’s degree and Jang will receive a doctoral degree.

Mandt, a Tampa, Florida native, will earn a bachelor’s degree in Latin from the Department of Classics. Mandt began her undergraduate studies at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida before transferring to FSU in Fall 2024, and she’ll graduate this summer with a 4.0 GPA.

At FSU, Mandt served as vice president of the Florida Senior Classical League and secretary for the Eta Sigma Phi Classics Honor Society. She was also an active member of FSU’s Tau Sigma Transfer Student Honor Society.

“The courses I took at FSU were high-level and challenging, but the support from my professors made me feel confident in my abilities,” Mandt said. “Maximas gratias to the FSU Department of Classics and the professors who pushed me to be the best student I could be!”

After graduation, Mandt will fulfill her lifelong dream of teaching Latin at St. John’s Classical Academy in Orange Park, Florida.

Betz, a Tarpon Springs, Florida native and now two-time FSU alumnus, will earn a master’s degree in Spanish this summer from the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics after earning dual bachelor’s degrees in international affairs and Spanish from FSU in 2024.

Betz received multiple departmental awards during his graduate studies, including the Dorothy Hoffman Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Spanish, the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics’ Service Award, and recognition as the Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year in the Spanish graduate program.

“My favorite part of the language acquisition process has always been how it helps me connect with people,” Betz said. “I’ve come to express myself more richly and encounter others with greater compassion and understanding.”

During his time at FSU, Betz served on the Hispanic Graduate Student Association board and directed FSU's Hispanic film festival, Cinehassee. He also volunteered with the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics' Discovery Nights program, where student volunteers visit Leon County Public Schools to teach young learners basic concepts in linguistics. After graduation, he’ll travel to Galicia, Spain, to teach through the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program, which places recent U.S. college graduates and young professionals in overseas classrooms to collaborate with local educators in teaching English as a second language to secondary school students.

Jang, who hails from South Korea, will earn a doctorate in chemistry through the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, in 2019 and his master’s degree in chemistry from FSU in 2024.

His dissertation, “Structure-Property Relationships of Bottlebrush Polymer Architectures,” explores the synthesis and characterization of bottlebrush polymers — man-made molecules designed to mimic the proteoglycans found in articular cartilage, which can help researchers develop new materials for biomedical applications. Jang’s research was published in the American Chemical Society’s scientific journal, Macromolecules, and he currently has another paper under review in which he performed further experiments in collaboration with scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory based on his dissertation.

“FSU offers many useful resources to help graduate students,” Jang said. “Travel funding, mentoring experience through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, and other opportunities here have shaped me into a more mature scientist and prepared me to work independently.”

After graduation, Jang plans to pursue postdoctoral research positions at academic institutions and national laboratories with the goal of becoming a research scientist and developing a new generation of polymeric materials.

For more about FSU’s Summer 2026 commencement activities, a full schedule of events, and livestream links, visit commencement.fsu.edu.