Commencement is always one of the best parts of graduation for college students. Family from all over come together to celebrate one of life’s greatest achievements for their student.
To make commencement even better for the graduates and the attendees there was a task force put together to come up with ideas and thoughts on how to make it the most enjoyable experience for all of the attendees.
“We were charged with dropping cost by 80 percent from $250,000 to $50,000,” the chair of the task force and Education Dean, Ray Reutzel, said.
Dropping the cost of commencement is one of the major changes that the task force focused on. They also had to focus on limiting the commencement to one day and the sessions to two hours for each group.
The new proposed plan has three sessions of students instead of graduating students by each specific college. The new plan also proposes that commencement will be held on one day and in a single venue.
The basketball arena will hold the commencement because it can fit about 600 students on the floor, with a maximum occupancy of 1000 students. University of Wyoming faculty and admin will get seats in the stands that are close to the floor.
“We will be providing transcriptions and signers for our attendees as well,” said Facilities Representative Caleb Hebbert.
Having signers at commencement will help attendees with a disability feel more involved with commencement. The task force is also looking into sending invitations out to our online graduates.
The online graduates would be invited to come to campus and join in on the commencement ceremonies and walk around to get an idea of what it is like to attend classes on the campus, as opposed to just taking the classes online.
“Making it all on one day will be easier for people coming from out of town. Having a time limit makes it feel more impersonal though,” a Business Economics and Accounting Senior, Austin Segrave, said.
Having a limited time for the whole ceremony was a concern the many expressed at the meeting that was held at the college of education. There will be another meeting held at 11:30 a.m., on Oct 31, in the education auditorium, open for all to attend and provide their thoughts on the changes made to commencement.
