The University of Oregon’s College of Arts and Sciences will not hold commencement ceremonies for each of its departments as it has in the past, according to emails obtained by the Emerald from Interim President Patrick Phillips and CAS Dean Chris Poulsen.
Instead, CAS will individually recognize all of its graduates in Autzen Stadium after the main university celebration, Phillips said in the email.
Department-level commencement ceremonies are usually held the day before or the day of UO’s main commencement ceremony. This year, the day before commencement is Juneteenth — a holiday UO began observing in 2021. As a result, all school and college ceremonies must occur on June 20, a Tuesday, Phillips said in the email.
CAS has historically been the only college within the University of Oregon that has held department-level recognition ceremonies and not a college-wide ceremony, UO spokesperson Kay Jarvis said in a statement. All other schools and colleges hold ceremonies at the school or college level, she said.
“The key activity at these ceremonies is to have each graduate cross the stage when their name is called,” she said. “This key activity will still be available to all CAS majors who choose to participate in the 2023 commencement.”
Madison Sutlovich, an English major graduating from UO in the spring, found out about the change through a professor.
Her high school graduation was canceled due to the pandemic, and she was looking forward to an English department commencement ceremony.
“I made a lot of friends in my English classes, and I really connected with a lot of my professors, and not getting to see them or to celebrate with them in the way that we should be able to is just a major disappointment,” she said.
She’s a first-generation college student, so having a department-level ceremony is a big deal to her because she wants to make her family proud, Sutlovich said.
“They didn’t get to see me walk across the stage for high school,” she said. “And so that really stung, and the fact that it’s not as personal now is almost like a slap in the face.”
CAS will email its graduates with more information early in spring term, Phillips said in the email.
“This year’s plan was the best possible outcome given its particular set of constraints, and we hope the various events we have planned will be a valuable and rewarding part of how our graduates, as well as their families and friends, commemorate this important milestone: completing their degree,” Phillips said in the email.
Although decisions about next year and beyond have not been made, Phillips is pulling together a working group to develop recommendations for how UO goes forward, Jarvis said.