Spring Commencement 2024: ODUGlobal By the Numbers

When she walks across the stage to receive a bachelor’s degree in human services at Old Dominion University’s 2024 Spring Commencement, 19-year-old Kimani Lewis will receive her third diploma in two years.  

“I’ve worked really hard and sacrificed doing some of the normal things a teenager does to focus on school,” said Lewis, who attended community college and graduated with an associate degree while in high school and will next pursue her master’s at ODU. “I’m going to be so proud to celebrate graduation.”  

This year’s class of 967 graduates through ODUGlobal is the largest commencement class of online students in university history. It represents over a third of ODU’s 2,826 total Spring Commencement 2024 class, which includes students from 41 states and 70 countries.  

Braylynn Stevens, also 19, had a similar story of moving through high school, community college and now ODU in quick order.

Stevens, who will earn her bachelor’s in cybercrime, set a goal as a young teenager of graduating before she turned 20.

“I was a self-starter and motivated,” Stevens said. “Being an ODUGlobal student gave me the flexibility to finish at my pace.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Elizabeth Sanborn took her time to return to ODU, where she worked in the 1970s. Sanborn, 70, will receive her bachelor’s in social sciences following a long career in health care administration.

Sanborn said political divisiveness pushed her to return to college nearly 50 years after starting at Tidewater Community College. She received her associate degree at Tidewater before transferring to ODU.

“I wanted to see why things have gotten to where they are politically, and to understand how I could be a better community member,” Sanborn said. “For a long time, I thought I had nothing to prove in my education. But this wasn’t about proving anything. I just felt like I needed to go back, and that it was just the next step for me as a lifelong learner.”

As ODU celebrates its largest-ever class of graduates through ODUGlobal, here’s an overall look at the graduating class of online students for Spring 2024 by the numbers.

3.52 – Average GPA for graduates

12 – Nations represented among graduates

34 – States represented in Spring Commencement

26 – PhD candidates in this graduating class

29.5 – The percent increase of the graduating class from Spring 2023 to 2024

33.4 – Average age of graduate this semester

34.22 – Percentage of the overall graduating class who are online students

70 – Graduates with bachelor’s degrees in psychology, the most popular major among undergraduates

93 – Educational leadership master’s degree graduates, the most popular program among graduate students

106 – The number of nursing graduates, the most popular major overall among online students

267 – Online graduates from the College of Education, the largest group of any of ODU’s colleges

215 – Military-affiliated graduates

49 – Active-duty military members

530 – Total number of undergraduate students