AU will hold individual graduation ceremonies for each school starting this spring under a new set of changes to the university's graduation format.
President Neil Kerwin sent an e-mail to the campus community Sept. 4 that outlined the changes, which will be in effect for the spring 2009 graduation.
"It has been increasingly clear that our current graduation format in Bender Arena is getting stretched to its physical limits," Kerwin said in the e-mail. "Shepherding 15,000 people into three substantive events over a 10-hour span was a complex task [that] required incredible behind-the-scenes orchestration along with a rapid turnaround of Bender Arena."
The old graduation format clumped the five schools into three commencement ceremonies. The School of Public Affairs and the Kogod School of Business shared one ceremony, the School of International Service and the School of Communication shared another, and the College of Arts and Sciences had one by itself.
The new format gives each school its own ceremony, which allows more guests to attend and cuts down on confusion and chaos, according to David Taylor, Kerwin's chief of staff.
"In essence, what we're doing is allowing for better pacing and greater participation," Taylor said, who also oversees the Office of Special Events.
Kate Gleason, a senior in SPA, said she approves of the new format but does not want to miss interesting commencement speakers from other schools.
"I know there is usually one big speaker and I don't want to be excluded from that speech just because I'm not directly in their field," she said
Graduation weekend festivities will occur over three days during Mother's Day weekend -- three ceremonies will occur on Saturday and two will occur on Sunday. Events for organizations like Phi Beta Kappa and the Honors Program will occur that Friday.
The new format also eliminates ticketing requirements. In previous years, students received four or five tickets for family and friends. The university will now ask students to be prudent about the number of people they invite to the ceremony, but they will not need to distribute tickets to guests.
Elaine Blinkovitch, a senior in SIS, said she likes the policy changes because she won't have to agonize over invitations like she did for her high school graduation, which had a set number of tickets available per graduate.
"I will be able to invite my close family and won't have to worry about not inviting friends and other relatives," she said.
Despite the format changes, most of the traditional elements of the ceremonies will remain the same, including the bagpipe procession and comments from the president, dean and student speaker, according to Kerwin's e-mail.
The Washington College of Law's ceremony, scheduled for May 24, will not be directly affected by any of the policy changes.
You can reach this staff writer at thallerman@theeagleonline.com.
