The University of Georgia has more than 250,000 alumni. Thursday, it got nine more when University of Georgia-Griffin campus graduates for the fall semester received their diplomas and a brick.

Assistant Dean and Assistant Provost Gerald Arkin told students and family members it was an especially enjoyable occasion for him.

“I had the real pleasure of getting to know the graduating students,” Arkin said as he addressed the graduates during his opening remarks. “I’ve had the opportunity to watch you study together and you’ve studied a lot. We’ve talked, in some cases, about your plans for the future. You’re a class act. You have an esprit de corps that I’ve noticed about you. Truly you’ve become part of the university’s family.”

Graduates included Kim A. Byrd, Ashley Christopherson, Stephen Colquitt, Michelle Denise Gerlosky, Lorna D. Nissen, Dow C. Redding, Jennifer Lynn Selman, Patrick H. Standley and Justin Sean Weldon. Colquitt was also the Griffin campus’s first graduate of UGA’s Terry College of Business.

Even after guests left Stuckey Auditorium, the ceremony was not over. Students and guests headed over to the Naomi Chapman Woodroof Agricultural Pavilion for a ceremony where the students’ bricks were placed alongside those of other UGA-Griffin graduates.