EFSC's First Bachelor Degree Graduates Set to Receive Diplomas

The first students to receive Bachelor Degrees from Eastern Florida State College will pick up their diplomas Dec. 18 during a landmark graduation ceremony.

About 1,260 students will be eligible to walk across the stage at the King Center for the Performing Arts on the Melbourne campus during the Fall Commencement, including 12 students who will have earned four-year degrees.

Those dozen students will represent an important milestone for EFSC, which became a state college and began offering Bachelor Degrees last year to provide more career choices to students.

“The ceremony will be history in the making for the graduates and the college,” said college President Dr. Jim Richey.

“The first Bachelor Degree recipients will be followed by hundreds more in the years ahead, and we’re elated that our new programs are making an important difference in people’s lives.”

Currently, nine Bachelor programs are available in the fast-growth job fields of business, health care and computer information technologies.

About 830 students are enrolled in the programs, showing the need the programs are meeting in allowing students to advance their education while staying close to their Space Coast homes.

Many of the Bachelor students are working adults who have their Associate Degrees and returned to the classroom to enhance their careers.

Among them is Ericka Ross-Murray, 43, of Palm Bay, who will receive her Bachelor of Applied Science Degree in Health Care Management.

“It will be very fulfilling to get my degree. It’s definitely going to be a major plus to help with my career,” she said.

Ross-Murray currently works as a patient care specialist in a surgical center and says the degree will allow her to move into management positions in hospitals, senior centers and other health care businesses.

“The degree will give me a lot of options and I’m really glad the college is offering them,“ she said.

There will be two graduation ceremonies Dec. 18:

• The first will start at noon with graduates from the Titusville and Cocoa campuses.

• The second will start at 3:30 p.m. with graduates from the Melbourne and Palm Bay campuses along with the students picking up their Bachelor’s Degree.

Both ceremonies will be streamed live via webcast starting at noon on the college’s Website at easternflorida.edu. They will be rebroadcast on WEFS-TV on Thursday, January 15 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, January 18 at 2 p.m. WEFS can be viewed over-the-air on channel 68.1 and on Bright House cable channels 9, 455 and 1068.

Graduates, families and friends are encouraged to share photos and memories via social media using the hashtag #efscgrad.

The latest graduates will join more than 90,000 others who have graduated from the college since it began in 1960. It was known as Brevard Community College before its name was changed in 2013.

In all, the colleges offers more than 100 degrees and certificate programs including a wide range of Associate Degrees.

For more information, visit easternflorida.edu.