Mercer will confer bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees to more than 2,200 students participating in five commencements during May in Macon and Atlanta. The total number of students meeting the requirements for graduation exceeds 2,600.

Commencement speakers will include President and CEO of the Georgia Hospital Association Caylee Noggle for the School of Medicine; Managing Shareholder with Baker Donelson Law Firm Ivy N. Cadle for Mercer Law School; Board of Trustees Chairman Thomas P. (Tom) Bishop in Atlanta and Macon; and graduating senior Kendall Webb in Macon.

The Atlanta and Macon ceremonies are ticketed events. Livestream coverage of all ceremonies will be available at mercer.edu/commencement. 

School of Medicine

The School of Medicine will hold its ceremony on Saturday, May 4, at 2 p.m., in Hawkins Arena inside the University Center. The commencement speaker will be Caylee Noggle, president and CEO of the Georgia Hospital Association (GHA). She will deliver her address to 162 candidates for degrees from School of Medicine campuses in Macon, Savannah and Columbus.

Prior to joining GHA in August 2024, Noggle served as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) and in a variety of roles in the Office of Governor Brian P. Kemp, including as the state’s chief management officer, interim chief of staff and deputy chief of staff for operations. Noggle was the first woman in Georgia history to serve in a chief of staff capacity to the governor.

Noggle holds a bachelor’s degree from Millikin University and a master’s degree in college student affairs from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where she served as a financial aid officer before moving to Georgia.

School of Law

The School of Law will hold its ceremony on Saturday, May 11, at 10 a.m., in Hawkins Arena. The commencement speaker will be Ivy N. Cadle, ’07, managing shareholder with Baker Donelson Law Firm. He will deliver his address to 103 candidates for degrees.

Born and raised in Swainsboro, Cadle graduated cum laude in 2000 from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and a Master of Accountancy in 2002. He earned his juris doctor from Mercer Law School in 2007.

Cadle’s litigation skills have been recognized by The Counselors of Real Estate, and his many honors include being listed in The Best Lawyers in America®; selected to Georgia Super Lawyers; and awarded Mercer University School of Law Young Alumni Council Volunteer of the Year Award (2023). He is a committed volunteer to Mercer Law School, the Macon legal community and the State Bar of Georgia. At Mercer Law School, he serves as an adjunct professor, teaching accounting for lawyers. Additionally, he routinely volunteers for moot court preparation, mock interviews and as a guest speaker.

From 2017-2018 he was the president of the Macon Bar Association, and from 2016-2017 he was the president of the William Augustus Bootle Inn of Court. On June 8, Cadle will be sworn in as the 62nd president of the State Bar of Georgia.

Atlanta

The University will hold two ceremonies for Atlanta campus graduates on Sunday, May 12, at Gas South Arena in Duluth.

The College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy and College of Health Professions will participate in a noon ceremony, and the School of Business, College of Education, College of Professional Advancement and School of Theology will follow in a 5:30 p.m. ceremony.

Thomas P. (Tom) Bishop, who will bring greetings from the Board of Trustees to more than 1,100 candidates for degrees across the two ceremonies, is serving his third five-year term on the board and is current chair.

A Double Bear, Bishop earned his undergraduate degree from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1982 and his J.D. from Mercer Law School in 1985. He is retired chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel for Southern Company Services, and for more than 20 years served in senior executive positions with the Southern Company and its subsidiaries, including Georgia Power.

He previously served on the Executive Committee of the State Bar of Georgia Corporate Law Section, as a member of the Board of Governors of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, as a member of Gov. Nathan Deal’s Judicial Nominating Commission, and currently serves as a trustee of the Georgia Legal History Foundation. Bishop has been a member of the Mercer Law School Alumni Board, and he and his wife, Darla, have a son, Tyler, who also holds undergraduate and law degrees from Mercer, and a daughter, Darian, who has an undergraduate degree from Mercer.

Macon

The University will hold a ceremony for Macon campus graduates at Five Star Stadium on Monday, May 13, at 8 a.m. Board Chair Thomas P. (Tom) Bishop will also bring greetings from the trustees to 781 candidates for degrees from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Business, School of Engineering, College of Education, College of Professional Advancement, School of Music and College of Health Professions.

Student Commencement Speaker Kendall Webb will be graduating from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences with a 4.0 GPA in her history major, minors in journalism and Southern studies and a certification in political communications.

Webb, from Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, is a Stamps Scholar and was chosen for the Women’s Public Leadership Network Nonprofit Management Fellowship for the 2023-2024 academic year. She has been involved with the Student Government Association and is a Mercer ambassador and peer advisor. She is also a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, director of philanthropy for the Panhellenic Executive Council and a member of several honor societies, including Phi Eta Sigma, Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Alpha Theta.

After graduation, Webb will join the fifth cohort of the Women’s Campaign School at the University of Texas’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, one of the nation’s premier programs for female campaign managers and future office holders. She then plans to move to Washington, D.C., to continue a career in politics and aspires to the halls of Congress to work with political campaigns and public policy.