As more than 1,360 students crossed the stage at Rice University May 9 during the university’s largest undergraduate commencement ceremony in history, the celebration at Rice Stadium was especially personal for a number of faculty and staff members watching from the stands — and in several cases, standing on stage to hand their own children a diploma.
For many families, the moment reflected years of mentorship, sacrifice and shared experiences rooted deeply in the university’s community. Some faculty members had watched their children grow up on campus, attending the Rice Children’s Campus before eventually becoming Rice students themselves. Others saw commencement as the culmination of generations connected through the university.
Mikki Hebl said the weekend carried an extra layer of meaning as both a professor and mother celebrating her son, Jackson Miles Harvey. Harvey, from McMurtry College, earned a degree in political science, graduated Phi Beta Kappa and will attend Oxford University next year to pursue a master’s degree in migration studies. Hebl handed her son his diploma during commencement.
Hebl, the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Chair of Psychological Sciences whose research focuses on diversity and discrimination-related issues, said she sees her son’s passions reflected in the values he developed during his time at the university.
“He is a really good human being who cares about social justice and is concerned about the current sociopolitical climate. He wants to make the world a better place. And I know he will,” Hebl said.
Harvey credited much of his success to his mother’s guidance and support.
“She supported me so much, and honestly, I credit her for a lot of my success,” Harvey said. “She’s a big reason I achieved everything I did and gave me amazing advice on what to do with my future and what to do at Rice.”
For Edward Knightly and his son Kyle, Rice offered something unique: the chance to spend four years learning and growing side by side on the same campus.
Kyle Knightly, from Martel College, earned dual degrees in mathematics and biochemistry, conducted research throughout his time at Rice and will attend the University of California, Berkeley for graduate school. His father, the Sheafor-Lindsay Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of computer science, requested to hand his son his diploma during commencement.
“Over these past four years, it’s been a delight to see my son experience all the things that make Rice special, from strong academics and the college experience to undergraduate research and study abroad,” Edward Knightly said.
The two regularly met for lunch on campus, sometimes just steps from Kyle’s residential college. “It’s been great to be so close to him these years,” Kyle said.
Kyle said the relationships he built with faculty members became one of the defining parts of his Rice experience.
“I’ve gotten close with a lot of professors, which I think is somewhat unique to Rice,” Kyle said. “I just feel professors here seem to be happy to get involved in their students’ lives, and it’s been a really great place. So many people here have gone out of their way to help me navigate life and succeed.”
Edward Knightly joked that fatherly guidance was never in short supply.
“It’s kind of a constant stream of advice, whether he was seeking it or not,” he said with a laugh.
Yousif Shamoo watched his daughter, Raven Shamoo, from Hanszen College, earn a degree in physics after years spent growing up around campus. Several faculty members’ children who graduated this year were classmates together at the Rice Children’s Campus (RCC), the university’s early childhood education center serving faculty, staff and student families.
Shamoo, the Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of BioSciences, also presented his daughter with her diploma.
“It was an amazing feeling to hand Raven her diploma at graduation,” Shamoo said. “I am so proud of her, it is almost too much to think about. I went from dropping her off in the morning at the RCC to handing her a diploma.”
Other faculty members who handed diplomas to their children during commencement included Eugene Zubarev and his son Alexander Zubarev of Baker College; Patrick Hartigan and his daughter Nyla Hartigan of Jones College; Pulickel Ajayan and his son Ahi Ajayan of Brown College; Susan Dunn-Rachleff and her son Samuel Rachleff of Sid Richardson College; Neda Zafaranian and her daughter Yasmin Sharpe of McMurtry College; and Tomasz Tkaczyk and his daughter Antonina Tkaczyk of Will Rice College.
For Alexander Byrd, the experience of watching his daughter Jenna Byrd graduate offered a different perspective on the university he knows so well.
A Rice alumnus and vice provost in the Office of Access and Institutional Excellence, Alexander Byrd said he intentionally tried to give his daughter space to make Rice her own experience while she pursued degrees in psychology and sports medicine and exercise physiology.
“I didn’t want to be in the way,” he said. “I went to school here. She’s coming to school here. I have a couple jobs here, and so I wanted to work hard on being out of the way.”
Still, watching his daughter’s journey unfold changed the way he sees the university.
“I’m just really proud of Rice,” he said. “Seeing what this place came to mean to her, and seeing the greatness of this place and the greatness of our staff and faculty reflected in her good experience here, and people who cared for her and challenged her and helped her to grow … to be able to see Rice from that perspective, through her eyes and her experiences, I really value.”
Jenna Byrd said her father’s approach allowed her to build her own support system while always knowing he was there when she needed him.
“I think he trusted Rice,” she said. “He trusted people at Rice to kind of step back and let me take care of myself and let everyone else here — the magisters, RAs, mentors — to let them take care of me.”
The commencement celebration also carried special meaning for staff members whose family histories are deeply tied to the university.
For Chetna Koshy, who leads the university’s Ethics and Compliance Program, commencement represented three generations of her family connected through Rice. Her daughter, Bela Koshy, earned a degree in political science with a minor in law, politics and social thought, following in the footsteps of both her mother, a 1995 Rice graduate, and her grandfather, Narendra Gosain, who earned his doctorate from Rice in 1973.
Gosain, now 85, attended the ceremony to watch his granddaughter graduate. He also served as an adjunct professor at Rice for nearly two decades and was the principal engineer for Michael Heizer’s “45, 90, 180” sculpture in the Engineering Quad.
Now preparing to attend the University of Texas School of Law this fall, Bela Koshy represents the next chapter in a family story shaped by Rice across generations.
“Her achievement builds upon a foundation laid in 1969 when her grandfather arrived from India to earn his doctoral degree at Rice, a journey that transformed our family’s future,” Chetna Koshy said. “Rice has truly been the cornerstone of our family’s American journey, and I could not be more proud of Bela as she begins this next chapter.”
As graduates turned their tassels and exited Rice Stadium to cheers from family and friends, the ceremony celebrated more than academic achievement. For these faculty and staff families, commencement reflected years of shared memories across classrooms, laboratories, residence halls and campus pathways — a reminder that at Rice, the university community often becomes part of a family’s story for generations.