The University of Georgia Griffin Campus held its Fall 2012 Graduation Celebration Thursday at the Stuckey Auditorium on Experiment Street.

The graduating class included 32 students, four of them being Griffin residents, and came one day before the official graduation ceremony at the UGA main campus in Athens.

“That shows we are in a growth spurt,” said UGA Griffin Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Director of Academic Programs Doris Christopher, who attributed the relatively high number of fall graduates to the new programs the local campus has been offering.

“It’s leading to a much more educated workforce,” Christopher said.

The local celebration recognized students from a variety of degree levels and programs. It also featured the first doctoral graduate in Sudeep Sidhu.

“It feels very, very good,” said Sidhu, who initially joined UGA in 2008 and became a students of the local campus in 2009.

Sidhu, who will work at the UGA Griffin Campus as a post-doctoral research associate, said it was the unique research opportunities on the Experiment Street campus that drew him to Griffin.

“I couldn’t resist coming to Griffin,” he said.

After the graduation celebration, the graduates went to the Naomi Chapman Woodroof Agricultural Pavilion for the traditional brick ceremony.

The brick ceremony, which is unique to the UGA Griffin Campus, has been performed since the first class graduated from the local campus in 2005. In it, graduates place a brick with their name and class in the ground.