Spring Graduation To Be Split Up

Three individual commencement ceremonies will be held this May for the Schools of Education, Fine Arts and Pharmacy as UConn tries to prevent Gampel Pavilion from reaching maximum capacity.

"As we get the increasing number of students graduating, we have to start decreasing the number of tickets for family members," said Michael Darre, marshal and chair of the Commencement Committee. "We're over-filling Gampel."

The School of Pharmacy graduation will take place in Rome Ballroom in south campus this year, while the School of Education and School of Fine Arts commencements will be held separately in the Jorgensen Center for Performing Arts. Students in all other schools and majors will graduate in Gampel Pavillion.

The major concern for students is that the more intimate graduation means that many of them won't be graduating with friends from other majors.

"I've always looked forward to the big ceremony for the end of my college career," said Heather Bull, an 8th-semester secondary biology education major. "It'll still be nice to have a smaller ceremony, but I have friends that are in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) who would usually graduate with Neag [School of Education] and it would have been nice to be in Gampel Pavilion with them."

The reason these three schools were picked for individual ceremonies is because they were the first three to volunteer," according to Darre.

On graduation day, families and important people in the graduates' lives come together to recognize and acknowledge the hard work the graduates have put into their degrees.

The possibility of having the student's names read was one of the biggest driving factors to switch to a smaller ceremony.

"People want a little more individual recognition that we've been unable to do in the Gampel ceremony," Darre said.

"Being the first college graduate in my family, I know the proudest day in my mom and dad's life was to hear my name read," said Richard Schwab, dean of the Neag School of Education. "I think that most parents would rather hear that than have lots of other speakers."

One of the other positive arguments is that the schools will get to have more specialized speakers that relate to their majors.

For example, Ray Neag, the major benefactor of the school of education, will speak at the commencement this year with Schwab.

Schwab said having Neag speak was solely possible because the ceremonies are separate and that having him will be "a wonderful way to have our first graduation."

"In addition to giving us the $21 million for the school, he's given $10 million for cancer research to the medical center," Schwab said. "One way or another, every student there has been touched by his generosity. He's a great guy."

Speakers for the other schools are yet to be announced.

"The students have responded to the Deans in their programs in a positive manner," Darre said.

However, some students question the move.

Pharmacy students, for example, traditionally received their four-year bachelor's degree in the same ceremony as other majors and only celebrated getting their six-year Pharm.D. awards in a separate ceremony. This year, however, students receiving their four-year pharmacy degrees will be separated from other graduates.

"I think it's kind of promoting discontinuity among the pharmacy school and the rest of the university," said Thomas Marottolo, a 6th-semester pharmacy student.

"I can understand when we get our Pharm.D.s because we only have about 100 kids per class and by then, we know each other like family," Marottolo said. "But I don't understand why we should be separated from everybody else for our bachelor's degree commencement."

Those involved in the commencement plan on keeping open communication with the students to see what they would like to do for future graduations.

"We're doing it on a test basis this year and if it works we're going to continue doing it and maybe expand it for other schools," Schwab said.