On December 6, 2014 the Georgia College community received a message from President Dorman about the future of commencement ceremonies. Georgia College has made the decision that from now on graduation commencement will be held in the Centennial Center instead of on Front Campus. This decision has been met with much backlash from students and the SGA has even taken a stand.
President Dorman pads this news with the news that from now on there will be a reception for faculty, staff, students, and families after the ceremonies (which will be at 9 am for the College of Arts and Sciences and at 2 pm for the College of Business, College of Education, and the College of Health Sciences) as well as the new tradition of having a “Senior Send-off” on Front Campus on the night before graduation. President Dorman goes on to say that the decision to relocate graduation is due to logistical problems, accommodation difficulties, and cost. The logistical problems are the downward slope of the grounds on Front Campus—which could interfere with visibility. Also, with the growing rate of the student population it is becoming more and more difficult to seat everyone. This combined with “comfort problems” such as extreme heat, cold, rain, and direct sun. Lastly, the cost of lights, staging, seating, and sound have proved to be significant according to President Dorman.
This decision has met with much backlash from students. There is currently a petition circulating for the reinstatement of Front Campus graduation. At the time of this article, 780 have signed the online petition. Facebook has been ablaze with comments from all majors and years about their desire to graduate on Front Campus. Many of them say that the first thing they noticed about Georgia College was its beautiful campus.
President of the Student Government Association, Juawn Jackson, issued a response to the permanent change of the commencement ceremony. He wrote that he was “deeply disappointed, shocked and simply heartbroken” by the decision. He said that although a Commencement Task Force was set up to get input from the Georgia College community, it was done over the summer when many were not able to give their say. He does note that 72% of the Class of 2015 responded in favor of keeping graduation on Front Campus. President Juawn Jackson brings up how classmates from the Colleges of Arts and Science, Health Sciences, Business, and Education will no longer be able to “celebrate their achievements with their fellow classmates” due to the new order for commencement. He closes his response by stating that “If $57,000 is too much of a burden on the overall university’s budget then the Student Government Association is willing to cover the cost of Commencement to continue the one, true tradition that we have”.
The question now is: will GCSU reverse their decision? Will the contributing factors hold or will student opinion trump them in the end?
If the majority of GC Bobcats want a Front Campus commencement, then maybe something can be arranged, but we all must note that GC did give reasons for their decision—it was not based on a whim. Perhaps the Georgia College will seriously consider SGA’s offer. All we can do now is wait.