Families share support online as students take virtual engineering oath

A group of graduating engineering students participated in a live induction ceremony for The Order of the Engineer on Monday, May 11, 2020. The ceremony was held on WebEx and livestreamed through Facebook so families and the UA engineering community could watch along.  

The event is a time-honored tradition for individuals entering the field of engineering. By accepting a ring and participating in the ceremony, engineers formally acknowledge their responsibilities to the public as they pledge to uphold the standards and dignity of the engineering profession. The ring ceremony, developed by The Order of the Engineer, an independent movement of graduate and professional engineers, is celebrating its 50-year anniversary.

Typically, the event is held in the Jean Hower Taber Student Union, but the current COVID-19 crisis made College administrators come up with a new way to conduct the ceremony. 

Dr. Joan Carletta, the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, led the ceremony and Taylor Davis, ’19 electrical engineering graduate, provided the keynote. Instead of signing their oaths in-person, students were asked to type their name in a meeting chat as a virtual signature.  

While the event was streamed, the UA engineering community flooded the comments with heartfelt messages. 

Support came from family…

.and faculty/staff. 

Read all the heartwarming comments on the College of Engineering's Facebook page.

“I felt proud of all that my classmates and I accomplished,” said Nicole Fletterick, mechanical engineering major, Class of 2020. “The ceremony was the perfect cap to the end of the year.” 

Congratulations to the Class of 2020!

Related content: 

• Watch a livestream of the 2020 Engineering Honors Virtual Awards on May 13 at 7 p.m. on the College of Engineering's Facebook page.
• Engineering seniors take Senior Design virtual.