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Hayley Duncan-Wehrfritz shares a moment with her parents after the spring commencement ceremony for Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine on Friday, May 12, 2023, at Bramlage Coliseum.
Graduates in Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine stand and raise their right hands while taking the veterinarian’s oath during the spring commencement ceremony Friday, May 12, 2023, at Bramlage Coliseum.
Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, speaks Friday, May 12, 2023, during Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine spring commencement ceremony at Bramlage Coliseum. Grandin, an autism spokeswoman and past Landon Lecture Series speaker, also received an honorary degree at the event.
Hayley Duncan-Wehrfritz shares a moment with her parents after the spring commencement ceremony for Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine on Friday, May 12, 2023, at Bramlage Coliseum.
Graduates in Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine stand and raise their right hands while taking the veterinarian’s oath during the spring commencement ceremony Friday, May 12, 2023, at Bramlage Coliseum.
Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, speaks Friday, May 12, 2023, during Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine spring commencement ceremony at Bramlage Coliseum. Grandin, an autism spokeswoman and past Landon Lecture Series speaker, also received an honorary degree at the event.
K-State hosted its 118th spring commencement ceremonies Friday and Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum. University administrators awarded more than 2,100 bachelor’s degrees, more than 500 master’s degrees, and more than 90 doctorates. Officials said at least 115 students are earning multiple degrees this school year.
Friday saw students in graduate programs and the School of Veterinary Medicine receive their diplomas and draped with ceremonial hoods. The Vet Med program had 119 graduates cross the stage Friday. K-State has officially graduated 7,857 veterinarians since the first class received diplomas in 1907.
World-renowned livestock expert Temple Grandin delivered the commencement address and received an honorary doctorate of veterinary medicine from K-State during the ceremony.
“Everything I think about is in pictures,” Grandin said.
Grandin delivered the Landon Lecture in 2016. A professor of animal science at Colorado State University, Grandin is also an autism spokeswoman, as she showed signs of autism at an early age.
She is an accomplished livestock equipment designer and an animal welfare advocate. In 2010, Grandin was among Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” in the hero category. She is one of the authors of “Emergence: Labeled Autistic” and the author of “Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism,” both which inspired the 2010 HBO film “Temple Grandin” starring Claire Danes.
Grandin is the author of several books — including the New York Times best-seller “Animals in Translation” — and gives many talks about animal welfare and the autistic brain, such as her TED talk “The world needs all kinds of minds.”
In her speech Friday, Grandin repeated that statement with passion.
“What I’ve learned is that, when you’re different, you’ve got to sell your work, rather than yourself,” Grandin said. “So, what I want to do is encourage you all to think about new ways of thinking. The world really does need all different kinds of minds.”
Grandin received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Franklin Pierce College, a master’s degree in animal science from Arizona State University in 1975, and a doctorate in animal science from the University of Illinois in 1989. The honorary degree she received from K-State Friday is one of more than 20 honorary degrees she has been awarded for her work over the years.
In the bleachers in Bramlage Friday, Kasey Duncan and his family sat and cheered for their graduate. Duncan and his family traveled from their home in Tucson, Ariz., to watch his daughter, Hayley Duncan-Wehrfritz, receive her veterinary medicine degree. She’s Duncan’s first child to graduate college, and he said “it’s been a long time coming” for Hayley.
“Four years at the University of Arizona as a Wildcat, then she came up here (to Manhattan) as a K-State Wildcat,” Duncan said. “As a little kid, we’d find hurt animals on the side of the road, and she’d take it home and want to mend it.”
As she greeted her family in the concourse at Bramlage after the ceremony, Duncan-Wehrfritz said Friday’s ceremony “really didn’t hit” when she kneeled for her hood, received her diploma and walked across the stage.
“It was after walking off the stage that I was like, ‘Oh man, like we really did it. We really spent four years doing this.’ … It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do since I was like, two,” Duncan-Wehrfritz said. Her plan is to move to Dallas and work as a small animal emergency veterinarian.
“We did it, and I’ve made such great friends along the way,” she said.
Duncan-Wehrfritz also recalled a portion of Class of 2023 president Bairon Madrigal’s speech at the ceremony about support systems and to thank them.
“All of my family is in Arizona, so my support was a lot of friends here,” Duncan-Wehrfritz said. “It’s sad to be leaving them, but it’s a lifelong friendship for sure.”
Mercury staff photographer Lewis Marien contributed to this story.
