Emory held its Commencement ceremony for about 4,100 graduates on Monday, May 14 on the Quadrangle.

According to tradition, the ceremony begins precisely at 8 a.m., as the stirring sound of bagpipes and drums from the Atlanta Pipe Band herald the procession that brings faculty, graduates and dignitaries onto the Quad.

Senior Louisa Cuervo makes her way through the processional. Graduates started the procession under a steady drizzle of rain, but severe weather held off for the rest of the day.

Emory University graduated approximately 4,207 students from the academic year 2011-12. Of those students, 71 received simultaneous degrees.

Two graduates see their names in the Commencement program.

Dana Toy and Tara Brooks find their names in the Commencement program. Of the graduates, 43.2 percent are male and 56.8 percent are female.

Mariangela Jordan, McMullan award winner

Emory senior Mariangela Jordan, selected as the 2012 Lucius Lamar McMullan Award winner, came to Emory as a transfer student in fall 2009 after working in a number of jobs, including driving an 18-wheeler truck.

Evan Dunn is the 2012 recipient of the university's highest student honor, the Marion Luther Brittain Award, which is presented each year to a graduate who has demonstrated exemplary service to both the university and the greater community without expectation of recognition.

In Emory College of Arts and Sciences, 46.8 percent of the graduates have earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or higher. The average GPA of Emory College graduates is 3.38.

The Corpus Cordis Aureum — alumni celebrating their 50-year (or more) reunions this year — welcome the new graduates.

"And that's what true success is all about," keynote speaker Ben Carson, professor of neurosurgery, plastic surgery and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said. "It is using the talent you have to elevate other people."