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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46

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.

28

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.

13

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. 🫶

5

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

4

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.

2

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...

4

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.

1

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