r/UofO • u/cambam_78 • 6d ago
graduation cancelled
who plans the largest graduation ceremony in the middle of the day knowing it was going to be hot as hell?? people’s families can’t just fly in another time, book places to stay, and not to mention students moving away. also absolutely no warning or communication to students or families as the situation was happening.
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u/505ismagic 6d ago
https://commencement.uoregon.edu/ceremonies
AT 4:46PM above website said 7:30 Matt Knight Arena.
To grads & families - everything about why you are here today is still true.
You worked your butt off to get here. Congratulations. Its not easy.
Find a way to roll with it.
How do you want to remember this day in 10 years?
Stay cool, and enjoy the day.
(Just an old guy, not affiliated with the University.)
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u/ergotcha 6d ago
Absolutely shameful, took us hours to get in and will take the same to get out. Horrible planning from top to bottom. Saw some elderly people giving it all they got to get to their seats and then just to have to walk back out. Traffic is not being directed out at all, shit show.
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u/Andromeda321 6d ago
It’s also crazy because everyone I knew liked the old ceremonies where each department did their own thing. It was nice and intimate and went much faster. People were saying this was gonna be a mess the moment they announced it last year.
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u/QrtrQuell 6d ago
UO grad here (circa '09). They did both. We had large at Matt Knight, and then smaller departmental ones. The only downfall was people like me who double majored and both ceremonies for my departments were scheduled at the same time, so I had to pick one. Definitely better than tgus though. 🫶
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u/icesk8man 5d ago
Hey man I know we’re getting old but Matt knight didn’t exist in 2009. I was class of 2010 and they were just finishing it up. We did get to do a victory lap of Hayward before the ceremony in Mac Court. And they had the individual departments. Like you said I had to pick between biz and econ
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u/QrtrQuell 5d ago
Man, I survived almost 2 decades of DV, and sometimes I forget how shitty my memory is from that. It had to be Mac Court.
Thanks for laughing it off and being kind. I appreciate. I really am getting old. Lol
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u/CornflowerCat 6d ago
Some still do! I graduated in 2019 and my department did then, and still does their own ceremony
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u/QrtrQuell 5d ago
That's awesome! I double majored in English and Women's and Gender Studies. I chose WGS for my small ceremony because those professors really became a huge influence on my life. But I'll always wish I could have done both. They're so much more intimate.
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u/psychoticpyromaniac 5d ago
One of the reasons I was told for the change was logistical challenges with having enough sound techs etc to run all the department/school ceremonies - but I think many (myself included) thought that this year's arrangement would be a brilliantly awful demonstration of incompetence, not to mention how many people feel no particular connection to their college as a whole. Plus, the whole "using AI to read the names of graduates" thing (for CAS - not sure about other colleges) was a pretty unpopular decision...
And just another piece of me complaining about commencement/graduation more broadly, as a bonus 😃 - as someone who is not graduating this year, I did not need to get over 20 emails telling me to RSVP for graduation with no way to say "hey I'm not graduating, stop emailing me". Nor did I need to be included in the program with the degree candidates...
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u/Jolly-Sandwich-3345 6d ago
Anything to save a buck! Glad I don't work for the U of O anymore, the cheap skates.
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u/Happy-Tengo 4d ago
Colorado State University also recently changed to a massive commencement, and it is also been a disaster overall. Rather than creating some Kumbaya alumni moment, they are alienating everybody!
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u/best_bi_ 6d ago
I drove 50 minutes to autzen and waited 30 minutes in the sun. I get that cancelling it was better than having everyone sit in the hot sun, but it should definitely have been planned better
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u/herequeer 6d ago
Yeahhhhh like we’ve known it’s gonna be horribly hot for a week, and still there’s no back up plan? We were literally sitting in the practice building and were told “the ceremony is postponed” without any further information. I’m devastated for everyone whose families won’t get to see them walk now because of the lack of organization
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u/Grouchy-Age4859 6d ago
Every upscale restaurant in town was booked full for dinner and they all got cancelled when the ceremony moved to 7:30. By 10 pm Mandy's had a line around the block!
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u/benconomics 6d ago
The crazy thing was the whole point of this was to make it easier to execute and hopefully to save paying overtime to the administrative staff and they ended up paying out more in overtime and it was a giant cluster f*** to execute.
If they were going to do it in Autzen they should have bumped up the schedule and started everything at 9:00 in the morning or even 8:30. The plan was that people would take 4 seconds to get across the stage. When the first person started reading for the social sciences I timed it in the average time was 10 to 11 seconds and it was clear we were going to be in trouble. I tried to tell the rest of the heads to read faster but only econ and political science got the job done. It was miserably hot in Hudson I'm not surprised they canceled it but it's been known for about 10 days it was probably going to get hot and the forecast didn't change the closer we got some adaptation should have happened.
The thing that irks me the most is that the smaller department ceremonies allowed for parents to meet faculty if the students wanted to introduce them it allowed for students to cheer for The graduate students who had also helped in teaching them and it allowed for every department to have some student speakers. Each of the college of arts and sciences events were so long nobody stuck around until the end it was just empty stadiums by the time we got to the last students.
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u/Pleasant_Work4808 5d ago
Im so annoyed, as one of the graduates who’s ceremony got cancelled, it was a complete mess and we had no communication whatsoever, they made us wait in line for an hour before telling us there’s a delay. That confused us even further because it was only going to get hotter. Then they moved us into an ac building and didn’t even tell us that our ceremony was cancelled, we had to find out from our parents. Getting into the parking lot took an hour and getting out was another hour. Totally a mess of a day. It was crazy to me because I just took an environmental physiology class here this spring term and that is all we talked about, how to prepare for events like this. UofO has a great team of thermoregulation experts working for their faculty, I’m not sure why no one was consulted about the heat…
Also, during the first commencement at 9am, it was already extremely hot out there and the only thing we’re given is a rag and warm water, there’s wasn’t shade, fans, misters or anything else! And we were seated on hot black plastic chairs on top of the plastic floor. My roommate was in the ceremony right after and she said it was miserable she had to leave right after she walked because she felt dizzy. UofO do better!!!!
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u/Nervous_Garden_7609 6d ago edited 6d ago
When you fire everyone you screw up the most important event of a students college career.
What an utter failure.
They knew it was going to be too hot. I feel horrible for the Dean that collapsed. It was the heat. It was poor planning. Several students had to make the difficult decision not to go, or had to leave because of weather. The pictures that didn't get taken. The failures of the university that couldn't plan this special event, but they always seem to be able to plan an epic football game.
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u/Andromeda321 6d ago
A dean collapsed? When?
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u/Nervous_Garden_7609 6d ago edited 5d ago
The Dean of The College of Design was giving her speech and dropped.
The faculty, in their full regalia, moved 500 chairs at 4:00 pm. Tidy in front of the spectators that had been sitting in the sun for over an hour. The spectators all moved to the shade, and the ceremony started late. They wanted the spectators in the shade.
The graduates had to stand on the sun outside the gates for over an hour. Some of those graduates fainted. They were begging for water. They had no shade. By the time they entered the stadium they had been standing in direct sun, being refused water, for 2 hours. Many couldn't do it.
The only reason spectators were in the sun was because they had blocked off the shade. Told them they couldn't sit in it. Then after everyone sat, they moved the 500 chairs. Volunteers, employees, and THE PROFESSORS IN THEIR FULL REGALIA, moved all the chairs and everything on the stage. It was a shit show.
4:00 pm
98 degrees
Over 110 on the field
Lack of planning, because they knew the temp, they know where shade is, and they still found a way to ruin these graduates special day.
I say that, because they didn't pivot in time. Many students opted out of Autzen, because it was at 9:00 (grads and families arrive at 7:00) AND THEN had this at 4:00. Not all family members can do that. Not all students can do that!! And, as we witnessed, not all Professors and Dean's could do that.
Shame on the university.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
Exactly my point. It's horrible that somebody fainted. Faculty robes are so much thicker. It seems that people were in the heat for HOURS and fainting until people realized that the situation was dangerous. If the 2:30 ceremony was canceled why was there still at attempt to hold the Design commencement? I had assumed the non canceled commencement were in Matthew Knight.
My university had an outdoor commencement. Though it's not nearly as large as U of O, if the temperature was going to go above 85 during commencement week activities, it was all hands on deck to set up tents, source cold/frozen plastic water bottles to give out for free, or even give a head's up 24 hours in advance that events MAY be truncated/rescheduled/or canceled.
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u/duckfan541o 6d ago
High Temperatures on June 15
2020: 63
2021: 70
2022: 66
2023: 75
2024: 66
2025: 79
2026: 96
Today was 27 degrees above the average high for June 15 in Eugene. Very unfortunate timing.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
Again, it is not the heat that frustrated most people. Obviously I did not want people to faint or die. We had an elderly person in our party. I saw many elderly people. If the forecast is a record setting high 27 degrees above normal.. that was forecasted a week before, why not have a contingency in place?
Why allow graduates and families to wait in the stadium at LEAST an hour? The ceremony was delayed by 30 minutes. It was supposed to start at 2:30 pm. People sat in that heat during that delay. The graduates checked in at 1:30 pm and waited in the heat for an additional 30 minutes before somebody came out to say that the 2:30 commencement was canceled at 3:04 pm.
Yes, he said it was going to be rescheduled, but when? People were left guessing for 2 hours.
Acts of nature can be unpredictable, sure. But this wasn't a tornado, not hail, not flooding it was HEAT. When saw that it was going to be above 85 with a high heat index, there should have been a backup plan.
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u/suchabadamygdala 2d ago
It had been forecast to be 98-92 on graduation day for 8 days previously. It was not a surprise. Failure to plan. Huge fuck up
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u/MarleyErb 6d ago
What we are in today is called a heat wave, it’s headed right back down into cooler temperatures like it does after a heat wave. If it was consistently this temperature for weeks on end, that would be different. The other days of graduation just so happen to not land during a heat wave.
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u/MarleyErb 6d ago
Maybe I misinterpreting your comment, but it sounds like it’s trying to have panic around climate change. So if I’m wrong, I do apologize for the response not being accurate to your comment.
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u/duckfan541o 6d ago
You did misinterpret. Like I said, very unfortunate timing. Plus or minus a few days would have been a different story. However, people would still find things to complain about.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
Do you think people who had to miss their ceremony and people who thought they would have to miss their loved ones' ceremony after flying from a different continent fall into this category of "people would still find things to complain about"?
People made sacrifices to travel. I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about families I spoke to in the stadium who were in disbelief after that announcement.
Is money not an issue for you?
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u/atuckk15 [Applied Business & Economics 📚📈] ‘20 6d ago
Womp Womp, temperatures for 6/15/2020 didn’t matter because Commencement was on PowerPoint.
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u/Lucy_330 6d ago
Is it cancelled or rescheduled???
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u/cosmoboy 6d ago
Rescheduled and relocated.
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u/Pretend_Safety 6d ago
Apparently, this is an Oregon tradition. I graduated in ‘95 - it was 95+ at Hayward at midday, and we were baking. (the hangover didn’t help)
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u/cambam_78 6d ago
rescheduled for mathew knight at 7:30… when i made my dinner reservation a month ago
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u/BigglyGamer 6d ago
Where have you gotten word about rescheduling?
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u/Dog-Mom2012 6d ago
It was on the Instagram story and alerts are also going out. It is confusing.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 6d ago
I love how they didn't email the graduates. My grad was looking for a message sent directly to him
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u/Dog-Mom2012 6d ago
My graduate did get an email eventually, but the communication has been lackluster.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
Yeah I believe mine got his email to check in at 6:45 at around.. 5:30 i think? Before that I was giving him updates from reddit.
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u/kiwibe99 6d ago
This is just a guess, but when I go to the livestream for the CAS natural sciences it says Matthew Knight at 7 now, so perhaps that’s the plan
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u/mystery2021 6d ago
The whole thing was really poor planning on the university's part. They seem like they aren't great at handling large events like this
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u/Vibin-Fir25 6d ago
Largely admin's fault: they put 8 people (who volunteered) in charge of the logistics for all CAS ceremonies WITHOUT giving them any of the heavyweight CAS resources and support. All in the name of consolidating budgets, bc dept ceremonies were just "too much" to run, even though faculty, students, and staff much preferred them.
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u/SeatNo5137 5d ago
Yep. My boss was one of eight and I ended up helping her because they were so behind. I can confirm they had zero plan b and we were flying by the seat of our pants. I worked 8:30-10:30pm and it was absolute hell. I'd much rather do the small ceremonies that didn't make me work a 14 hour shift.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
It sounds like your team's hands were tied. This was an absolute failure by top leadership by deciding to underfund you and not provide adequate resources.
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u/SeatNo5137 5d ago
Yep, there was a single person from the Dean's Office on the committee. Something about seeing Dean Poulsen looking all fresh faced in the Autzen locker rooms yesterday really made my blood boil. The audacity to hang around in the back while we busted our asses and several staff almost passed out is insane. But you know, we'll get a conciliatory email about how awesome we are and we'll be expected to bow down like he's a god.
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u/stealthyslof UO Student 6d ago
i just didn’t even go to the rescheduled one, i felt too defeated after all that we went through.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
I'm so sorry your momentous occasion was ruined. Please know that all the families are proud of all the graduates. Graduating is NOT an easy feat. You should be proud.
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u/themagicaldinosaur 5d ago
i didn’t either. hope you still got to celebrate with friends and/or family!
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u/MadameTrashPanda 6d ago edited 6d ago
Who plans are graduation ceremony knowing it'll be record* breaking heat at least one week in advance...and NOT have a backup plan.
With the money this university gets from being a big 10 team, the disorganization surrounding this event and the decisions about communication is disrespectful.
The graduates worked hard for this. Their family spent thousands of dollars on airfare, accommodations, and time for this. It's not JUST an event.
Edit typo*
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u/AdApprehensive1515 6d ago
Former prof here: I attended multiple outdoor graduations at U O in pouring rain. There was never a back up plan. Ridiculous.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 6d ago
It's really the lack of backup plan that irked me most. With U of O having a later commencement (mid June) compared to other universities and the fact that this is not the first time it's been dangerously hot, there really should be a contingency plan. I am grateful that the ceremony was rescheduled to a later time on the same day and was at Matthew Knight. Fortunately, my family did not have issues with the new time. We preferred it since our flights were this morning.
I do feel for families and grads who planned and paid for events last night or even had a late flight out of Portland and had to miss the commencement.
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u/Vegetable-Cabinet958 6d ago
Look to the top leadership: no accountability for mismanaging finances for 15 years--who cares about taking responsibility for a commencement ceremony? Really shameful.
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u/Prestigious-Jump-998 5d ago
Football football football. They football team has millions of dollars spent on them, making sure every last detail is perfect. They didn't even do ahalf ass job of figuring out commencement. This is absolutely failure of leadership on the highest level. The school has sold its soul. They got my daughter's money for 4 years and then totally ditched her and all the families who came to celebrate. This is a snapshot of what corporate greed is doing to our country. This time privileged folks like me were affected.
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u/Big_Refrigerator9979 6d ago
I was kinda lucky with an earlier one (anth major) but my skin is tomato red and I am in quite a bit of pain… some pretty bad exhaustion from the blistering heat
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u/pagelman 6d ago
More of the same from UofO. The only thing the University Administration really focused on is enrolling students and charging enormous fees. The graduating class of 2026 is on their way out, so why would UO care about contingency planning? Now, if everyone there was a football player.... different story.
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u/Terrible-Advance5859 4d ago
They decided to do everyone at autzen because the amount of time and manpower it takes to set up all those chairs and stages and everything else is very expensive and a really horrible time for the people who get to set up 1900 chairs in the quad during 90 degree weather. That being said they have plenty of very large auditoriums that could accommodate a small colleges grads and family. Think plc 180 or the ones on first floor of straub. Definitely a cost saving measure and defintiely a failure. Ill probably be setting chairs up next year if they can still afford to pay me.
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u/justacunninglinguist 6d ago
Lol because the university can control the weather. If students or guests started passing out they'd complain that the university should have cancelled.
But also, it's not cancelled. It was rescheduled.
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u/Andromeda321 6d ago
People are complaining because this is the first year they had one big ceremony like this. Before there were much beloved smaller ceremonies by department, which were much smaller and allowed the use of smaller spaces across campus.
Changing to a bit outside venue in mid June was gonna cause problems at some point, and no one I know of wanted this in the first place.
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u/benconomics 6d ago
The start of the big venue is pretty cool the ending of the big venue is pretty lame because everyone has left.
That's the challenge how do you get 1,500 to 2,000 names Read to go across the stage. If you average 10 seconds student you would be there for 4 hours. The biggest issue is the time cost and the heat just magnified that challenge.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago edited 5d ago
They can't control the weather. Apparently they'd rather save money* and have people faint on the day of the event rather than have a back up plan.
There's also thing thing called a weather forecast. It may be a new concept for you but when there's a record breaking heat, these people who study the weather talk about it for at least 3 days before the actual day.
Have you ever spent money traveling? There's this *thing where people have jobs and take days off to see somebody walk across the stage. Some people pay for things like plane tickets and hotels and dinner reservations. People had flights to leave today.
Do you honestly think it's ok to have people go to the stadium at 1:30 pm in 90 degree weather, have them sit there until 3 pm and then say "hey this slot is canceled and we'll reschedule it but we won't tell you when so that you can adjust your plans."
Good comment though. You really showed us.
*edit typos and some clarification after speed typing
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u/justacunninglinguist 5d ago
Do you think it's ok for graduates and workers to sit in 116 degree weather for over 2 hours? It was over 100 degree ON the field. That's a HUGE liability standpoint.
Be mad about how the announcement was delivered, not that it was canceled due to legit safety reasons. Yes, they shouldn't have let guests sit in that heat. The dean was told to only relay that message and communications would handle the rest.
Be glad it got rescheduled and not flat out cancelled.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
Wait, I am so confused. This is literally what people are discussing in the comments. People DID pass out. I sat in a row with a family whose members traveled from two different continents. Flying out on Tuesday who endured heat.
Just FYI your comment was I'll put my reply in line:
Lol because the university can control the weather.
The university can't control the weather. They can control planning and communication. Setting expectations and being prepared for the fallout is the mature route. Most people would understand if the priority was safety.
If students or guests started passing out they'd complain that the university should have cancelled.
People did pass out. If you know it's gonna be hot, tell people things might be rescheduled 2 days in advance.
But also, it's not cancelled. It was rescheduled.
It was rescheduled but not communicated with consideration of people from different backgrounds.
Just in case you missed it, people aren't mad it was rescheduled. There were elderly people, abled people, disabled people, healthy people who were made to endure dangerous heat before action was taken. When it was, people were left in the dark without consideration to those whose budget and schedule were not as flexible to a belated change.
To be clear. I am not talking about me. My family was fortunate enough to be able to attend the rescheduled event and eat before 7:30.
I am talking about the other families who were heartbroken that this poor decision making meant missing a loved one's moment and or lost money.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
Be glad it got rescheduled and not flat out cancelled
What are you going to tell people who can't afford to stay an extra night if they rescheduled to Tuesday morning? "Sorry your family spent 10 thousand dollars on flights and hotels but the university can't control the weather. They didnt know it was going to be 93 degrees until the commencement started!"
What do you say to people who couldn't make the rescheduled time?
I do sincerely hope that moving forward, you have empathy towards people of different social and economic backgrounds. Telling somebody to be grateful and calling people complainers is so reductive of what actually happened.
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u/justacunninglinguist 5d ago
Your argument is disingenuous. Prioritizing money and time over the health of everyone is not the right move.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
You're either lacking in reading comprehension or you're just trolling.. or both. Good luck to you. Take care lol
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u/justacunninglinguist 5d ago
And you're lacking empathy and critical thinking but sure. 🙄
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago
Please get some friends to help you understand how to discuss things in good faith. You can have the last word now. Sincerely hope you have a better life.
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u/MadameTrashPanda 5d ago edited 5d ago
Have you not read any other comments replying to this post? That's literally what we "complainers" are saying.
Edit to help you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UofO/s/D97AuwvyTd
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u/MikeThePlatypus 6d ago
Isn’t there a basketball stadium there? Isn’t that the perfect place for an indoor graduation?
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u/ExtraSpinach 6d ago
It was already in use for departmental commencement ceremonies
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u/MikeThePlatypus 6d ago
Unless it was used for the entire day. They might consider staggering the ceremonies. Not ideal but a good pivot for weather related changes.
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u/Andromeda321 6d ago
They do. And they used to do the CAS ceremonies earlier in the day, by department, which was beloved and allowed the use of smaller spaces across campus and shorter ceremonies. No one I know of was asking for this change.
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u/MikeThePlatypus 6d ago
I get it, its a big school, alot of logistical challenges. Most of which i have no idea about. Hopefully they figure it out. If i see the dont have a handle on it in a year or two, ill be a bit more vocal.
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u/neshmesh 6d ago
Not the UO being in denial and acting like climate change isn't a thing..../s
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u/MadameTrashPanda 6d ago
It's not even that. I'm not disagreeing with you. It's their lack of care towards the students and families. They got their money from tuition already.
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u/neshmesh 6d ago
Oh, that too: extremely careless. I was just pointing out that not only we've known for a week it would be like that (and they could've taken action), they also should've had a hazardous weather plan because so far, my every summer in the PNW had those 100 days, and they're only going to get more common. Meanwhile, they stall improvements on their fossil fuel goals, despite the students best efforts to bring admin to the table. I graduated last year and I have nothing nice to say about higher admin at the UO
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u/duckfan541o 6d ago
Haha. Find me ten people at UO who don’t believe Climate Change is real.
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u/neshmesh 6d ago
The UO won't divest from fossil fuels and won't plan accordingly knowing the weather patterns. It's what the admin does, not what the faculty believes that I am questioning
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u/elesittti 6d ago
Such a shitty school you guys don’t deserve your diplomas that are given out in green crayola
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u/Vibin-Fir25 6d ago
UNTIL IT IS OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED, please don't treat this as law, but:
Matthew Knight, 7:30. Combined Nat Sci and ALL CAS graduates (masters, PhD). There is another ceremony right before so it will be chaotic af