Missouri S&T holds three Fall 2026 ceremonies. PhD and master's candidates from all departments go first, at 6pm on Friday 18 December. Undergraduates follow on Saturday 19 December in two ceremonies, 10am and 3pm, split by department. All three are in the Gale Bullman Building, and all three times come from the university's own commencement calendar. Which departments sit in which Saturday session has not been published.
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Three ceremonies, not two
Missouri S&T’s commencement calendar gives three Fall 2026 ceremonies, all at the Gale Bullman Building:
| When | Who |
|---|---|
| Friday 18 December, 6 p.m. | PhD and master’s degrees, all departments |
| Saturday 19 December, 10 a.m. | Undergraduate degrees, designated departments |
| Saturday 19 December, 3 p.m. | Undergraduate degrees, designated departments |
There are two Saturday ceremonies, and which one your graduate is in depends on their department. Confirm it before booking a return flight: a 10 a.m. and a 3 p.m. ceremony are different days entirely.
One sourcing note if you check for yourself. The commencement site’s own “Upcoming Ceremonies” page was still showing Spring 2026 when we looked. The dates above come from its calendar page, which is current.
Three ceremonies, and S&T publishes the times
Unusually for this site, Missouri S&T gives you hours as well as dates:
- Friday 18 December, 6pm, PhD and master’s degrees, all departments
- Saturday 19 December, 10am, undergraduate degrees, designated departments
- Saturday 19 December, 3pm, undergraduate degrees, designated departments
All three in the Gale Bullman Building on West 10th Street. Most universities we cover publish a date and leave the time until an invitation goes out six weeks ahead; S&T has it on the calendar already.
The one thing it has not published
Which departments sit in the 10am session and which in the 3pm.
The calendar says “designated departments” for both without naming them, and that is precisely the detail a family booking flights needs. A 10am Saturday ceremony and a 3pm Saturday ceremony imply completely different travel days when you are coming from out of state.
Until S&T publishes the split, book against the whole Saturday rather than a half of it.
Why an engineering school changes the travel picture
Missouri S&T is not a regional state university with a mostly in-state intake. It is a science and engineering school that recruits nationally, and that changes who is coming to Rolla in December.
At a school drawing largely from its own state, a good share of families drive in for the morning and leave the same evening. Here, a higher proportion are flying into St. Louis (97 miles) or Springfield (98 miles) and then driving down I-44. Those families are not deciding whether to book a hotel; they are deciding how many nights.
That matters for the local market, because it means Rolla’s demand on those two days is less elastic than a headline student count would suggest.
One week before Christmas
This is the tightest calendar collision of any December cluster on this site.
18 and 19 December fall squarely in the pre-Christmas travel week. I-44 is busier, Lambert and Springfield are busier, and hire cars and airfares price for the season rather than for a graduation in a town of 20,000. None of that has anything to do with Missouri S&T, and all of it lands on the same weekend.
If you are flying relatives in, the flights are the thing to sort first here. The hotel is the easier half.
Fifty-two miles to the nearest room
| Fallback | Distance |
|---|---|
| Rolla itself | on the doorstep |
| Lebanon, MO | 52 miles |
| St. Louis, MO | 97 miles |
| Springfield, MO | 98 miles |
Rolla reads as conveniently placed because it sits midway between two metros on an interstate. Functionally, that means both metros are an hour and three quarters away and the only thing in between is Lebanon.
Where the evidence runs out
No graduating-class figure and no room count for the Rolla cluster, so this page carries no arithmetic of the kind our Kansas State and Binghamton pages give. Neither was published anywhere we could cite, and no Rolla property has been confirmed sold out for a commencement weekend.
The case here rests on three things that are all verifiable: three ceremonies across two days, a 52-mile gap, and a date in Christmas travel week.
Why the map centres on Rolla itself
The Gale Bullman Building’s own coordinate returns a 404 on the booking map we use, so the map is anchored on central Rolla. The Martin Springs Drive and Bishop Avenue hotels sit nearer that pin than the campus does anyway.
Live availability near campus
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Frequently asked questions
What are the Fall 2026 ceremony dates and times?
Friday 18 December 2026 at 6pm for PhD and master's degrees in all departments. Saturday 19 December 2026 at 10am and again at 3pm for undergraduate degrees, split by department. All in the Gale Bullman Building on West 10th Street. These come from Missouri S&T's own commencement calendar, which publishes times as well as dates.
Which undergraduate ceremony will I be in?
Unknown, and that is the one gap that matters. The calendar says "designated departments" for both the 10am and the 3pm session without naming which. Until S&T publishes the split, a travelling family cannot tell whether they need a Saturday morning or a Saturday afternoon, so book against the whole day.
How many nights do we need?
Two, if your family has both a graduate and an undergraduate candidate, which is common at a research university. The graduate ceremony is Friday evening and the undergraduate ones are Saturday, so there is no way to compress it. For a single undergraduate candidate, the Friday night is still the safer booking given the 10am possibility.
Why does the December date matter beyond the ceremony?
Because 18 and 19 December sit directly in the pre-Christmas travel week. I-44, Lambert in St. Louis and Springfield's airport are all busier that week for reasons unconnected to Missouri S&T, and hire cars and flights price accordingly. This is the tightest calendar collision of any December cluster we cover.
How far is the nearest alternative if Rolla is full?
Fifty-two miles, to Lebanon. After that it is 97 miles to St. Louis and 98 to Springfield. Rolla looks well placed on a map because it sits midway between two metros; in practice that means both are an hour and three quarters away.
How many students graduate?
No figure was published on Missouri S&T's own pages that we could cite, so this page does not estimate one. What is worth knowing instead is the shape of the intake: S&T is an engineering and science university that recruits well outside Missouri, so a higher share of its families are flying in than at a regional state school.
How we verified this
Last verified:
This page is verified in two stages. Every fact is checked against the primary sources listed above, then the page is reviewed and signed off by our editor, A. Hassan. Corrections and enquiries: hello@graduationstay.com