An increase in the number of fall graduates has led the university to move this month’s commencement ceremony off-campus to the St. Peter’s World Outreach Center on Old Lexington Road.
This marks the fourth year that the university has scheduled December graduation exercises.
Only 90 students took part in the event the first year. However, the number of students who have applied to graduate this month totals 281, according to William Cain III, the director of the registrar’s office. Of the 281 candidates for graduation, 247 are undergraduate students and 34 are graduate.
Until now, the Kenneth R. Williams Auditorium has been the designated site for the fall ceremony. It seats about 1,800 people. St. Peter’s, on the other hand, has a seating capacity of 3,000.”We moved it there because we are simply outgrowing K.R. Williams,” said Dr. Shirley Manigault, the associate dean of English and Foreign Languages and Co-chair of the Convocations committee.
Manigault added that when you consider the number of graduates, plus their family members, friends and the increased number of faculty taking part in the ceremony, the move was inevitable.
Many colleges and universities require their graduates to distribute a limited amount of tickets for guests to be allowed in their ceremony. However, Manigault said, “We were trying to accommodate the graduates and their families without going to tickets.”
Manigault said a committee considered several different sites for the graduation ceremony before deciding on St. Peter’s.
“The coliseum would be entirely too large,” she said. “Even in May [commencement], unless we have 5-7 thousand people, it would look like we’re just lost in the crowd.”
The keynote speaker will be Thomas E. Terrell, Jr., a Greensboro attorney and former board chairman of the WSSU Board of Trustees. He is one of the state’s leading attorneys in the areas of land use and environmental law, advising both private companies and local governments on growth-related and environmental issues.
Although Cain said this year did not mark the largest number of candidates who applied for graduation, he said the option of December graduation is obviously increasing in popularity. The growth is also attributed to the additional master degree programs offered at WSSU.”We look forward to continued growth in the December graduation,” he said. The ceremony takes place next week on the 10th.