Winter weather postpones fall 2009 ceremony

The events surrounding the day of the 2009 fall commencement are probably a time many Winston-Salem State graduating students and their parents will remember. 

But not for a good reason.

Dec. 18 [the scheduled for commencement] a winter weather advisory was issued by the National Weather Service to the Winston-Salem area.

The campus was closed at 1 p.m.

And the commencement ceremony in the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum scheduled for 4 p.m. had to be postponed.

WSSU sent a notification via e-mail early afternoon to  the student body about the cancellation and notified graduates that commencement would be rescheduled.

Nancy Young, the interim director for Media and Public Relations, said that she received a lot of e-mails and phone calls from parents and family members upset because they took time off from their jobs and in some cases made reservations at local hotels.

"I understand why parents and students are upset, but people's personal safety is the top priority," Young said.

"Students' families were coming from different cities and states, and many were driving."

SGA President Whitney McCoy said she feels like the University did what was best. 

"The weather conditions in Winston-Salem could have easily contributed to car accidents and other unfortunate events."

By 6 p.m. that day, the area surrounding LJVM was blanketed with ice and snow.  And there were hazardous driving conditions.

Chancellor Donald Reaves made the final decision after he received unanimous input from staff, Young said.  

Reaves sought input from all parties involved she said.

During the week of Jan. 11, there were informal meetings  with staff and students to decide on a new date for the fall commencement.

Jan. 22, Reaves and staff were scheduled to discuss  options for a replacement for fall commencement [This meeting was scheduled after the Argus deadline]. 

Young said the University will seek input from SGA, who has not had to field many of the concerns from parents and students.

"There have been talks of combining fall commencement with the spring as well as creating a separate ceremony," Young said.

"By the end of this week [Jan. 22] we will have narrowed down our options."

Combining both ceremonies could create capacity issues, and separate ceremonies might not be well attended.

Young said if both ceremonies were to be combined a dilemma of crowd capacity could be created.

"We don't want to have to place limits on how many tickets a student can have.

"We don't want the solution for fall commencement to have a negative effect on the spring graduates."

While capacity is an issue, time is not.       

The University will have LJVM for the entire day of ceremonies and rehearsals.

A key factor is how many students are anticipated to return for a replacement fall commencement. 

There were 525 fall graduates.

"If a small number of students say they will return for a replacement commencement then combining both [commencements] would be an option," Young said.

Chancellor Reaves will send an e-mail to fall graduates regarding the new date for commencement. Also public relations is working with information technology to develop a survey to determine how many fall graduates would be interested in returning for commencement at a later date.

"It is virtually impossible to make everyone happy, but our goal is to please the majority," Young said.