This morning Dr. Richard Carvajal, VSU president, announced that fall commencement will be face to face this semester with a few changes to accommodate the Center for Disease Control Guidelines.
Fall commencement will now take place on Monday Dec. 14 at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium with a series of four different commencement programs throughout the day.
The College of Humanities and Social Sciences commencement will occur first at 9a.m., the College of the Arts and Langdale College of Business Administration will be at 12:30p.m. and the Dewar College of Education and Human Services, College of Science and Mathematics, and College of Nursing and Health Sciences will occur at the same time at 4pm. Graduate School commencement will be last at 7:30p.m.
Summer 2020 and Spring 2020 graduates have also been invited back to celebrate their commencement, which they didn’t get a chance to have due to the pandemic.
For those who won’t be able to attend fall commencement in person, there will be a live stream of the ceremony available on the VSU website.
Each graduate will only be permitted to invite five guests to their commencement, and everyone, including the graduates, are required to wear a face mask.
Dr. Vince Miller, vice president of Student Affairs, said that the amount of invited guests is important in order to regulate how many people are in the stadium at one time. He also said the use of the stadium and some new procedures that will be set in are crucial when upholding CDC guidelines.
“Just being inside the stadium helps us to meet the social distancing guidelines, helps us to control entry and exit points, and helps us to ensure we can manage crowd sizes through ticketing processes,” he said. “Sanitization processes will be in place between each (ceremony). We’ve got a large staff of volunteers that will help us facilitate the event successfully. It’s a little bit different but definitely the safest and strategic way to host commencement for our students face to face which again was our no. 1 priority.”
Story written by Lenah Allen, Editor-In- Chief. Photo courtesy of Bethany Davis, Graphic Designer .