The University of Oregon will bring back departmental graduation ceremonies for graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences after deciding to only hold five ceremonies. Still, CAS seniors are disappointed to have a commencement ceremony different from the one they had imagined.
In February of this year, the Daily Emerald broke the news that CAS wouldn’t hold its usual departmental commencement ceremonies after receiving emails sent from former Interim President Patrick Phillips and CAS Dean Chris Poulsen.
Originally, UO officials said CAS would individually recognize all of their graduates in Autzen Stadium after the main university celebration. But after a petition to bring departmental ceremonies received over 3,700 signatures, CAS announced in March on its website that it would hold five commencement ceremonies for humanities majors, natural sciences majors, social sciences majors, the School of Global Studies and Languages and CAS Master’s and PhD students.
However, some students still aren’t happy with the decision.
Maddie Picaro, a senior and a computer science student, said that not having a departmental ceremony feels very impersonal. She said that it’s awkward to lump together majors that might not share the same experience throughout their time in college.
“It’s not the small ceremony,” Picaro said. “I would love to shake my department head’s hand, and I would have loved seeing the professors I got to work with and all the graduate and PhD students who helped me through my classes.”
Picaro said she considered not even attending the natural sciences departmental ceremony that computer science majors are grouped into along with majors like chemistry and biology, but she will because her family wants to watch her receive her diploma.
“It feels very corporate,” Picaro said. “I wonder if I had gone to another university, would this have happened?”
Kelly Schombert, a double major in computer science and art and technology, said that the announcement in February that there would not be departmental ceremonies resulted in a lot of anger.
“I just chalk it up to, well, I’m the year that got unlucky,” Schombert said. “We’ve gone through enough with our freshman year being cut short by COVID, and then two more years in the middle of COVID craziness, and this right at the finish line.”
She said that splitting CAS into only five departmental ceremonies feels like a rushed solution. As a student with two majors, she was faced with potentially trying to attend two ceremonies in one day and having her family watching different ceremonies for hours. She said she hopes if this is to happen again there should be some consideration for spreading the ceremonies over a few days, not just one.
“I think the whole thing is weird,” Schombert said. “It really highlights that they did not put a ton of thought into this and they’re just like ‘oh break it up, we’ll make it work.’”
But things are set to return to normal starting next year.
A motion to the UO Senate proposed by Bill Harbaugh, professor of economics, asked for commencement ceremonies to be held on the weekend immediately after finals, and to form an advisory group to work on improving commencement ceremonies. The motion passed in March.
Harbaugh’s blog, UO Matters, released an email from Interim Provost Janet Woodruff-Borden on May 12 to commencement advisory work group members stating that she and Interim President Jamie Moffitt confirmed that CAS departmental ceremonies will be permitted for 2024 commencement.
The email stated that from 2024-2028, commencement activities would take place across two days — the Sunday and Monday following finals week, not that Saturday and Sunday like the motion by Harbaugh had requested.
Historically, department-level commencement ceremonies are usually held the day before or the day of UO’s main commencement ceremony. But since the day before this year’s commencement is Juneteenth, all school and college ceremonies must occur on June 20, a Tuesday, Phillips said in an email obtained by the Emerald in February.
Currently, the Saturday after finals week in 2024 is when the Nike Outdoor Nationals are scheduled to be held at UO. In both 2025 and 2026, that Saturday is scheduled for the NCAA championships. In 2010, conflict with the NCAA Track and Field Championships caused commencement to be moved from the Saturday to the Monday following finals week.
“With these bigger ceremonies, nobody really knows what to expect,” Schombert said. “Nobody really knows how to plan for it. Can I expect to sit with my friends? When should my parents come? When should they not come? That’s the most frustrating part.”
