Graduation is on the horizon for seniors at Dixie State University, but it is going to be a little different this year.
William Christensen, executive vice president and chief academic officer, said graduation will be done like it was a while back. Instead of having each school do its own graduation, DSU will have one large ceremony.
Graduation will be done this way because of the convenience for everyone attending graduation. Instead of graduates attending one ceremony then waiting a couple hours for the next one, there will only be one ceremony. The ceremony will not take as long as some people are thinking, Christensen said.
“We have the time for names being read down to about 45 minutes,” Christensen said. “The whole graduation ceremony should not take any longer than two hours.”
Organizers have cut down who will speak so people are not sitting for countless hours. The only speakers at graduation will be the student speaker, President Biff Williams, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox and the Hal Hiatt, president of the alumni association.
Each school will choose a valedictorian, but that person will not speak at graduation. To keep the personal level of being able to graduate with classmates, the different schools are being encouraged to put on a reception for the students.
“If a reception is done by the different schools, there is still the closeness, but it will be more efficient,” Christensen said.
Dexter Humphreys, a senior communication major from Hatch, said he understands why graduation is changing but thinks there still might be a couple problems with it.
“I could see how it could be beneficial to the camaraderie of all the graduation seniors to do it together, but at the same time, graduations can be long enough as they are,” Humphreys said. “This might negatively affect the audience members mostly who now have to sit through the entire school [graduating.]”
With graduation being condensed into one event, there are things like the traditions that will not be changing. For example, graduates will still walk through the “D” after collecting their diplomas. The only difference is the “D” will not be on the stage anymore but down in front of the stage. With it being down in front of the stage, there shouldn’t be a line up on the stage from reading the names so quickly.
“We are wanting to be sensitive to traditions that people are accustomed to here at [DSU],” Christensen said.
