Leland, SGA seek graduation agreement

The Student Government Association engaged in a heated meeting with President Dorothy Leland this Wednesday about the formatting of future Georgia College & State University commencements.

President Leland began the discussion with an apology to the SGA. Leland said she felt a communication gap was responsible for the student association not becoming involved in preliminary decisions about graduation sooner.

The current location for December’s graduation is still pending. Leland began to consider moving the ceremony after she received numerous complaints about sound quality and crowd control in the Centennial Center.

Leland proposed one big outdoor ceremony, a brunch and then the separation of the different schools for the remainder of the ceremony, but limited space would not allow it.

SGA President Loman Martin said crowed control outdoors could be an issue.

“I think that task will be equally as hard as trying to find a way to acoustasize the Centennial Center, because you are going to have to have the SWAT team out there breaking up fights between parents,” said Martin.

SGA President Pro-tempore John Wright said students have approached him with concerns about the possibility of a new location. Many students scheduled to graduate in December have already ordered their announcements, which list the Centennial Center as the location.

No resolution was reached for the December graduation, but Leland said a determination must be made in the very near future.

As for future ceremonies, Leland suggested creating more distinguished ceremonies with high profile commencement speakers.

“It has to do with building the image and the reputation of the institution,” Leland said.

“If you watch the news reports…they pinpoint the institutions that are getting high profile commencement speakers,” she said.

SGA members expressed great frustration at the prospect of losing spots for friends and family members just to have one big ceremony with an important speaker.

“There’s got to be a reasonable compromise to these problems, that we can get a really nice ceremony that still allows your friends and family to come,” said Leland.

The possibility of using closed circuit television broadcasts into other locations on campus for overflow in future ceremonies was also addressed.

“I had to go through this in high school, and quit frankly I found it really unfair to students,” said SGA vice president Adam Edge, “When you put your time and your effort into doing something that only 20 percent of the population in the United States does, getting a college degree, I think you deserve to have your family there. And your family should be in an intimate situation with you. It shouldn’t be ‘okay mom, I’ll meet you out in the parking lot after you watch me on television’.”

One of the possible solutions discussed for spring was to have two separate outdoor ceremonies. SGA members argued that this would provide each graduate with more tickets for friends and family.

However, a commencement speaker would not be able to attend two separate ceremonies. Leland said it might possible to rotate which ceremony has the “high profile commencement speaker” each year.

The SGA also proposed a ten-ticket minimum allocation to each graduate. Regardless of how many tickets each graduate receives, there will most likely be a pool that will require students to return excess tickets to students who need them. Leland said students might be asked to sign a commitment to an honor code that would prevent them from selling tickets, and commit them to returning unused tickets. The method of ticket reallocation from the pool is undetermined at this time.

Leland said she would propose possible compromises to her commencement ceremony committee.

Although Leland expressed the importance of discussing the issues with the committee, she stressed that the final decisions will be hers. A public forum between SGA President Loman Martin and President Leland will be held at four thirty on Thursday, Oct. 27 in Chappell 114 to further address graduation issues.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 22 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry