Students weren’t happy with the size of the graduation commencement ceremony before the university decided to expand. With the approval of the strategic plan on Thursday, which will increase enrollment from 4,700 to 10,000 over the next 10 years, students’ concerns are likely to grow.
Student complaints came to a head months ago when Lorenza Navarro, a USF St. Petersburg graduate student, started a petition to get the May 4 commencement ceremony moved from its current location at the 2,031-seat Mahaffey Theater to a larger venue.
“USF St. Petersburg’s commencement ceremony is held at the Mahaffey Theater every semester,” Navarro said in the petition. “Each semester, students are given five tickets for family and friends to attend this ceremony. These students have worked tirelessly to achieve this well-deserved milestone, yet they are forced to limit who may experience it with them.”
Navarro’s petition has reached 250 signatures.
Han Reichgelt, USFSP’s regional vice chancellor of academic affairs, understands students’ frustration and the importance of a graduation ceremony.
“All I’ve done in academic administration is driven by the belief that universities don’t exist to have students,” Reichgelt said, “they exist to have graduates.”
One cause of USFSP’s graduation-site dilemma is the rate at which students graduate from the school.
“We’ve seen student numbers drop a little bit at USF St. Pete this year,” Reichgelt said. “The main reason for that is that we’re pushing them out with degrees and that we’re not quite filling the pipeline with as many students as we graduate. That’s a good problem to have.”
The biggest challenge the university faces is finding a new location that accommodates the desired number of attendees while giving them a chance to see the campus.
Reichgelt said that it’s too hot for an outdoor ceremony. Tropicana Field has been suggested by many students. While it remains an option, it is too far for some school officials.
“The closer you can get to campus, the nicer it is because parents then get the chance to see the campus a little bit,” Reichgelt said.
Molly Diangikes, a senior psychology major at USFSP, said that while she doesn’t have a problem with the five-ticket rule, she believes a larger commencement site will be needed once the university’s expansion begins.
“If we’re already struggling with having a smaller commencement…we’re gonna need a bigger space,” Diangikes said.
To remedy the five-ticket limit, some students have used an online ticket-exchange, which Reichgelt jokingly compared to a “black market.”
While he doesn’t have an answer to the problem, Reichgelt empathizes with students who want more than five tickets.
“I think about my own graduation,” Reichgelt said. “I was the first from my family to get a college degree…It’s very important to families and friends.”
