Graduation to be axed after this December

Georgia College & State University will be having its first and last December graduation ceremony on Front Campus this year.

At the request of GC&SU President Dr. Dorothy Leland, the decision was made by the Council of Deans, which is comprised of the four school deans: the University Librarian, the Vice President of Student Affairs, the Dean of Students and the Dean of Faculties.

The decision will revert the commencement ceremony procedure back to the way it was five years ago, so that there will only be one graduation ceremony, held in May on Front Campus. This means that students graduating in December will still receive their diplomas but will not be able to walk until the spring ceremony.

There are many reasons behind this change, but the main reason was that GC&SU’s previous practice of holding the graduation ceremony in the Centennial Center or Russell Auditorium was problematic due to problems with the two buildings.

Vice President and Dean of Faculties Dr. Anne Gormly explained why Centennial was not an acceptable place to hold the ceremony.

“In Centennial, you cannot hear anything at all; the bleachers are too hard for families to move around on without injury, especially for the elderly, which has already happened once before,” Gormly said. “Both the Centennial Center and Russell Auditorium have safety regulations that prohibit the large amounts of people that commencement draws in, which causes us to limit the number of tickets that can be issued to each graduate.”

Gormly also added that the whole reason GC&SU brought back the December graduation ceremony was because Centennial Center could not hold the amount of people that wanted to attend without violating fire codes. To alleviate this problem, GC&SU decided to hold another commencement ceremony in December in addition to the one in May.

According to Gormly, the decision to have the commencement ceremony just once a year has been a topic of discussion for more than a year. GC&SU began researching other colleges that the university considered to be schools of distinction, focusing on how they address their graduation procedures.

Although future fall graduates may be inconvenienced by not being able to walk until May, their transcripts will still recognize the semester they officially graduated by completing all of their required credits.

Sophomore biology major Aaron Ferrell thinks that having one ceremony in the spring is a good idea.

“Having one graduation ceremony feels more official. It signifies the close of the school year, before the summer break, when it feels like we should be graduating.” he said.

Others feel just the opposite. Ana Col?n-Olivieri, a junior exercise science major, has some doubts about the new plan.

“Having one graduation ceremony in May, rather than two during the year, is going to mean a longer ceremony. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to be sitting in a dark graduation gown in the sun for hours, just so I can walk up on a stage and get a degree for 45 seconds,” Col?n-Olivieri said.

Some students are indifferent about the decision. Junior marketing major Marielle Espinol said the concept of having graduation in May feels more official, but she also said that college commencement does not feel as momentous as a high school graduation ceremony.

“I don’t think I would feel the same emotional connection to a college graduation ceremony as I would to my high school graduation,” Espinol said. “I won’t know half of the people graduating with me, and the big deal about a high school graduation is that it marks a time where you are going off on your own.

Because this year’s fall graduation ceremony will be held on Front Campus instead of in Russell Auditorium, each graduate will receive eight admission tickets, instead of the usual five.
The Fall 2005 commencement ceremony will be held on the front campus at 10 a.m., Dec. 10, and the processional will begin at 9:45 a.m.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 4 2005. 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