More than 50 people will become U.S. citizens during a naturalization ceremony at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 17, in the Law Center McQuade Auditorium on The University of Toledo’s Main Campus.

Magistrate Judge Darrell A. Clay of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio will preside over the ceremony, which will celebrate Constitution Day at the University.

Dr. Sammy Spann, interim senior associate vice president of student affairs and dean of students, and D. Benjamin Barros, dean of the UToledo College of Law, will give welcome remarks at the event, which will feature guest speaker alumnus Yixing Chen, who was naturalized at a UToledo ceremony two years ago.

Chen moved from China to the U.S. 28 years ago and graduated from UToledo with a master’s degree in public health in 2012. He later worked at UToledo’s Jacobs Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center.

In a 2019 op-ed for UToledo News, Chen wrote, “During my 25-year journey to citizenship, I never lost the dream of being able to hold my hand to my heart proudly when my classmates recited the Pledge of Allegiance; or when my friends sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at the Toledo football games; or when I hang the stars and stripes in front of my home in Toledo; or when I tell my beautiful daughter, Lilian, that her ‘baba’ (Mandarin for daddy) is also an American like her.”

Constitution Day is annually observed in America to commemorate the formation and signing of the Constitution of the United States on Sept. 17, 1787.

The free, public event is sponsored by the Office of Government Relations.