Graduate Student Council will meet Friday with University Interim President Mark Hussey as a follow up on a proposal to extend graduation ceremonies to Sunday in addition to Saturday.
GSC voted Feb. 4 on a proposal to accommodate the ever-increasing number of graduates. The proposal consisted of three options: add more venues to the graduation process, make the Thursday before graduation an additional graduation day or make the Sunday another graduation day.
Brittany Bounds, GSC president and history graduate student, said GSC voted on the third option because it was the least intrusive to the standing conditions.
Bounds said making Thursday a graduation day would prove problematic to families coming from out of town because many of them wouldn’t be able to get off work during the week.
Amanda Hatheway, senior business honors major and Student Government Association chief of staff, said graduation classes are drastically increasing in size with the rising student population.
“Several of the larger colleges, like agriculture and liberal arts, have such high numbers of students graduating that the fire marshall has expressed concerns,” Hatheway said.
Leslyn Felder, senior communication major, said she is relieved that the council opted for making Sunday another graduation day instead of Thursday, especially since she is planning to graduate in May.
“Making graduation on a Thursday would just kill the whole experience because a lot of people wouldn’t be able to go,” Felder said. “My family lives four hours away, so they make my graduation a weekend-long event.”
Bounds said adding more venues would have neglected graduates who would miss the experience of graduating in Reed Arena. Students graduating at a venue outside of Reed also would not be given the opportunity to shake the University president’s hand when receiving their diploma.
“[Adding Sunday as a graduation day] seemed to us to be the least painful option because it wouldn’t take away from the whole experience,” Bounds said. “We didn’t want to make it a huge transition for the graduates and their families to have to adapt to.”
Hatheway said although nothing has been decided at the University level, SGA and GSC are working to solicit student opinion on what changes will occur. After Friday’s meeting, Hatheway said SGA plans to send out a survey through Student Life to solicit student input on the matter.