I’ll be attending Tweet Up of sorts tonight — one of those face-to-face gatherings of friends you’ve known only via social media. But I didn’t meet these friends on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. We came together and bonded on Blackboard, the platform my university uses to deliver online courses.

Tonight we gather to celebrate the first graduating class of the Kent State Online PR Master’s program and toast the end of a two-year adventure for these students. But back at the office, our work awaits, as some 260 students make their way toward their Kent State diplomas, with more signing on every 7 weeks.

The students who graduate tomorrow are PR, marketing and media professionals who took a chance on a new program launched by our gritty, blue-collar university here in the Ohio Rustbelt. They’re intensely busy people who haven’t the time or the luxury to attend graduate school in campus classrooms.

These students had choices of where to pursue their online degrees —  names far more prestigious than Kent State (USC and George Washington, come to mind).  But tomorrow, they walk down that aisle at the MAC Center and become Kent State alumni. We hope it’s been a worthwhile experience.

I’ll be stepping away from my screens this weekend to share the spotlight with the best graduate students I know. Don’t look for a lot of tweeting from me. I plan to enjoy the experience, up close and personal.