About 1,700 students received their diplomas, including roughly 1,300 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students, during Georgia Southern University's fall commencement Friday. The single, open-air ceremony was held for the first time at Allen E. Paulson Stadium.

Mike Royal, chairman of the Georgia State Board of Education, served as keynote speaker. Royal, an insurance professional, received his Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from GSU in 1995.

"Life is full of choices and decisions, and ultimately, your life will become a sum of those choices and decisions you make," Royal said in his address to graduates. "The bad ones, learn from them, and the good ones, learn from them and replicate them."