Dear Graduates:
I have read many of the emails you have shared with your concerns, as well as the petition with 2,000+ signatures about moving the Commencement Ceremonies inside. I appreciate, value and respect your candid expressions of heartfelt frustration, loss and disappointment about the disruptions to your plans that this decision causes you and your families.
I also recognize that any reply will largely be unsatisfying to you. But I want to acknowledge your outreach, especially since I have spent the past 22 months working so hard to be present and to establish relationships with this student body. I also need to extend my sincerest apologies for this necessary disruption.
While it may not seem the case, please know that the Commencement changes were considered thoughtfully, with student and academic leadership consultation and with the hope and desire to continue recognizing every single graduate as they cross the stage. That's the heart of the student experience at this culminating event – a celebration of your great accomplishment.
Decisions were heavily grounded in the broader state and national context of campuses reviewing Commencement venues given recent disruptions and with the expectation that ceremonies be celebrated safely and in person. These issues have touched our own campus, as you know. Different venues require different levels of required planning and security, per state guidelines this year.
Over the past week, I’ve heard the outcries from our campus community regarding the presence and impact of police. As we worked to review fulfillment of state-required planning, late last week it became abundantly clear that any outdoor ceremony would require significant presence of outside law enforcement—something we wanted to avoid. The presence of outside law enforcement also means less campus control of this momentous occasion in the lives of our students.
So, the event changes allow us to stay focused on the student experience while supporting the need for safe and secure ceremonies for both graduates and their ticketed guests. I recognize that additional guests will only be able to witness their student's big moment via a livestream. That is undoubtedly a loss that I will name and not one that any of us at the University take lightly.
While not ignoring this loss, the University hopes to celebrate students to the best of its ability within the realm of the possible this year. I hope you will choose to take part in these ceremonies with your loved ones.
Sincerely,
Darrell P. Wheeler
President
