Friday, May 9, 2025, in the Hamilton Building Rhoden Arts Center, Hamilton Building

Join us for the BFA, Certificate, MFA, and Post-Bacc Commencement Ceremony at 12pm - 1:30pm on Friday, May 9th in the Rhoden Arts Center in PAFA's Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building.  Students may invite up to 6 guests.  The ceremony will be live-streamed and recorded.  The recording will be uploaded to this site within a week of Graduation.  

Following the ceremony, the graduates and their guests are invited to celebrate the class of 2025 at the Graduation Luncheon in Lenfest Plaza!  The luncheon will be from 1:30pm - 3:30pm.

The Annual Student Exhibition Public Opening Reception will be from 4pm - 7pm in the Hamilton Building Galleries.  

The 2025 Commencement Speaker, Distinguished Alumni Award, and Alumni Service Award will soon be announced!

We look forward to celebrating all our graduates this May - congratulations!

Watch the 2024 BFA + Certificate Commencement Ceremony

https://youtube.com/live/Gz32P63wBPU

Graduate and Post-Bacc. Convocation, May 2024

https://youtube.com/live/su5D47y5yOY 

2024 Alumni Awards

Congratulations to this year's Alumni Service Award recipient, Fred Danziger. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Fred Danziger studied at PAFA, where he received the Cresson and Scheidt Awards. His career has included over 20 solo shows in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well as numerous group shows in New York City at Sherry French and K.R. Perlow Galleries. Fred’s work is in 12 American museums' permanent collections, including PAFA's! As an educator, Fred was PAFA faculty teaching portrait and still life classes and also taught at the Art Institute of Philadelphia.

Congratulations to this year's Distinguished Alumni Award, recipient Aubrey Levinthal. Aubrey received an MFA from PAFA and a BA from The Pennsylvania State University. Recent solo exhibitions include Tourist, Some Day, Neighbors, Strangers, Gazers, Bathers, and House Weary. Recent exhibitions include A Place for Me, Close, and Shelf Life. Aubrey lives and works in Philadelphia.

2024 Commencement Speaker

Thank you, Clarity Haynes, for your incredible words of wisdom and inspiration during our commencement ceremony this year. Your message resonated deeply with the graduates, and we're grateful for your contribution in making it a truly special day for them and their guests.

Clarity is known for her long-standing explorations of the torso as a cite for painted portraiture. Works in her Breast/Chest Portrait Project, always painted from life and usualy monumental in scale, have focused on themes of healing, trauma, and self-determination. Feminist and queer craft practices are often honored in her work. Bright colors, lively compositions, and multiple narratives conjoin in the depictions of bodies, altars, and her most recent body of work, which centers on the subject of birth. Haynes received the Distinguished Alumni Award from PAFA in 2020 and holds an MFA in painting from Brooklyn College, CUNY, BA from Temple University, and a Certificate of Fine Arts from PAFA.