Department of English Commencement

When: Sunday, June 14, 2026 2:00 pm
Where: Dickson Court North

Congratulations, class of 2026! We look forward to celebrating with you at our departmental commencement event in June.

EVENT DETAILS AND EXPECTATIONS:

The departmental event is a smaller, more personal ceremony for our graduates and their families. You will be able to celebrate your accomplishment with your fellow classmates and the English department’s faculty and staff.

Our departmental event includes:

• Addresses from the Department of English chair, featured faculty speaker, and featured alumni speaker.
• Announcement of Dept. of English creative writing awards, essay contest winners, and departmental honors designations.
• Individual recognition of graduates: your name will be called and you will cross the stage for a ceremonial photo with the chair. We ask that all graduates and their guests remain until the end of the ceremony to honor each student as their name is announced.
• Faculty receiving line: after all graduates have received individual recognition, our faculty will form a receiving line to congratulate you on your accomplishments. The end of the receiving line marks the end of our ceremony.

Our departmental ceremony typically lasts 1.5 – 2 hours. Please plan accordingly when making restaurant reservations, travel plans, etc.

Our departmental ceremony does not include College Honors or Latin Honors announcements.

ONLINE REGISTRATION FORM AND TICKET ORDERING:

Ticket ordering information will be emailed to students in late April or early May.

2026 FACULTY SPEAKER: Professor Justin Torres

Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts, which won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction, among other awards. A 2025 Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy, he’s also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center. His first novel, We the Animals was a national bestseller, adapted into a feature film, and recently reissued as part of HarperCollins American Classics series.

2026 ALUMNI SPEAKER: Ali Haeri

Ali Haeri is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Ouma Health, one of the nation’s largest maternity telehealth platforms. He also teaches product marketing in Northwestern University’s Medill IMC graduate program and previously taught digital analytics and marketing at UCLA Extension. He previously served as Chief Marketing Officer of MNTN, a streaming TV advertising software company, where he led marketing from the company’s early days through its IPO. A UCLA English alumnus, Ali was named to the 2025 Adweek 50 – Adweek’s annual list honoring standout leaders in advertising, marketing, media, and technology – and has delivered keynotes at major marketing and advertising events across the country.

Please note that this page pertains only to the Dept. of English commencement event. For more information about the College of Letters & Science commencement events, please visit the UCLA Commencement website.

Students with questions about College Commencement or academic eligibility to participate may direct their inquiries here: http://www.college.ucla.edu/commencement/help/contact/.

Past Departmental commencement speakers

Kwame Granderson (2025)

Stephanie Ellis-Smith (2024)