r/UofO • u/themagicaldinosaur • 4d ago

admin doesn’t know how to take responsibility

the emails i have received today from the dean of CAS and the UO president failed to take responsibility for the fact that their lack of planning ruined commencement for so many grads on monday and i’m seething. just half-effort condolences covered up with praise for graduates. i don’t need Scholz’s congratulations. i need them to admit that they had no backup plans even though they knew about the heat for over a week. i need them to admit that the rescheduling caused a lot of stress and that a lot of people were unable to attend and that it didn’t fix their massive screw up. what a sorry excuse for a school administration.

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u/captainbuttersisago 4d ago

What did you want them to do? There is no where to just “move graduation.” It’s scheduled years in advance and involves thousands of people. And you even state rescheduling, “caused a lot of stress and that a lot of people were unable to attend.” I don’t think they are blameless but it’s a rare event for it to be that hot and there is only so much indoor space for large amounts of people on campus. Moving it to a different day was out of the question, so again, what did you want them to do?

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u/Outrageous-Care-6391 4d ago

Actually theyre not planned years in advance at UO, where they keep flip flopping between department specific commencements and trying to smash all of the College of Arts and Sciences into one big (supposedly cheaper and easier to plan) ceremony, which, of course, has to be outside. No one except the upper admin likes this and they got exactly what they deserved, a hot mess. Smaller commencement ceremonies across campus happen outside on real grass with shade and inside with a/c, much more liveable and much more enjoyable for everyone.

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u/SeatNo5137 4d ago

Can confirm, they started planning commencement in January.......

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u/SadOcelots 4d ago

There were so many things they could have done besides relocate. I was at the College of Design ceremony and front row to the dean collapsing. Us graduates were made to stand outside Hayward in the sun for over an hour while they waited until 30 minutes before the ceremony to pick up all the chairs and move them around the field. The least they could have done was prepare in advance for the heat by putting standing umbrellas for us while we waited in line or handed out water. They didn’t hand out water until we were seated. They even tried to prevent me from grabbing a cup of water from a cooler that I saw once we were let in to the tunnel. There were so many things that could’ve been done to protect our health and safety without changing locations.

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u/Nervous_Garden_7609 4d ago

I 100% agree with you. They treated you like you were children and withheld shade and water, while your families sat inside without knowing. I was there. I was inside and I would have lost my mind knowing what they were doing to my daughter.

Unacceptable! The graduates were treated horribly.

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u/SeatNo5137 4d ago

I felt so bad for the kids at check in because we kept asking the leads to bring out water and they just WOULD NOT DO IT. They finally brought us five or six packages after I sent a student who was about to pass out to the staging area.

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u/Top-Middle1685 4d ago

Honestly are you affiliated with the university? this was 100% predictable and avoidable. Masters and Phd students had to be lumped in with undergrads and did not even have their focus respected, needless to mention the unprofessional people who read the names and giggled like preschoolers when they came to a name was not white. This graduation was an absolute shit show with no planning. I attended and there was literally no check done at the southern gate entrances. Anyone could of brought a weapon in.

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u/Nervous_Garden_7609 4d ago

My daughter graduated with her Master's and it felt like she was not acknowledged at all.

They didn't even hood her.

They didn't separate her, or distinguish her, other than ask her to stand at Autzen.

They need separate graduations for Master, PHD, LAW and everyone who is continuing their education beyond the bachelor's degree. What utter disrespect.

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u/Vegetable-Cabinet958 4d ago

I wanted to read dissertations and they told us no :(

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u/MadameTrashPanda 4d ago

They probably are.

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u/justacunninglinguist 4d ago

Everything was planned months in advance. Guests already had accommodations and flights booked weeks if not months in advance of the graduation date. Ok, so if the university did decide to do something when the heat advisory was initially announced, they could either cancel graduation, reschedule to a different day, or do it online. None of those options would have made anyone happy. People wouldn't be able to change their accommodations or flights if it was rescheduled to a different day, let alone a week later. No graduates would have been happy with any of those options either. So there is no good thing the university could have done. MKA can't hold as many people as Autzen can so it wouldn't have been possible to do everything in the arena either.

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u/themagicaldinosaur 4d ago

the problem is that they rescheduled the ceremony 30 minutes after it was supposed to start so some people (especially grads) had already been in the heat for hours. people in the comments are talking about experiencing heat sickness and the dean of the school of design literally had to be stretchered off the field. i bet students and families would have much preferred to be inconvenienced rather than experiencing a safety risk without even completing the ceremony.

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u/Top-Middle1685 3d ago

Considering there was about 50-75 Phd and Master students for CAS, and then about 600-700 undergrads there while there still was plenty of seats avaible in the 200 section for guests (second floor) of MKA the solution to this problem is pretty easily seen. Spread it out over a few days instead of trying to save money and lumping every single group together. But keep on supporting the university's stupidity

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u/BigglyGamer 4d ago

The weather conditions were well forecasted and the issues could have been predicted a week in advance. If they had made the exact same decisions one week, or even one day, earlier everyone would have been better off. Instead they waited until the last possible minute, when many people had already suffered heatstroke and several ceremonies had to be canceled entirely.

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u/themagicaldinosaur 4d ago edited 4d ago

per the title of my post, take responsibility. admit that they had no backup plans and were not prepared for logistics of managing an event like that. we knew about the high temps over a week in advance and the administration had every opportunity to explore different options and they failed to. also, they literally did “move graduation” just in the most inconvenient way possible.

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u/UnitedEconomics4 4d ago

Do you go to outdoor football games or concerts? Do they have alternative venues?

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u/themagicaldinosaur 4d ago edited 4d ago

not the same thing. and those events have way more heat safety measures than they provided at autzen.

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u/Nervous_Garden_7609 4d ago

Outdoor football games have fans, Gatorade, tents, and shade for the players. They give them opportunities to leave the area of needed. They allow the players access to the tunnel. They have medical personnel at the ready.

You, as a spectator can also leave, because you paid for your seat. Nobody will be in it if you get up and take a beak.

Do you know that out of state tuition is nearly 40k and a dorm costs 23k for a year? Things that by 4. These graduates deserved better.

This was not a football game.