On Thursday, March 21, the Piedmont University registrar announced that seniors graduating on Saturday, May 10, will be limited to six tickets for the 9 a.m. undergraduate commencement.
Tickets are required to enter the 1,248-seat Cave Arena of the Johnny Mize Athletic Center where graduation is scheduled to be held. No extra tickets will be provided to any graduating undergraduate student for any reason.
Unfortunately, this includes all current enrolled Piedmont students as well. Students will not be allowed to enter the Mize to support their graduating teammates, classmates and friends unless they possess a ticket upon entry.
This will not impact the graduate student ceremony held at 1 p.m. in the afternoon on the same day, also at the Mize. Graduate students will not be limited on tickets due to the smaller number of students who will be recognized.
After receiving the news, students immediately vocalized their frustrations in every way they could on platforms such as the Piedmont app and the anonymous-posting app YikYak.
Past graduating classes in the four years prior ranged from about a combined undergraduate and graduate 200 students to just over 400 students. These numbers have remained consistent dating back to 2011, when 397 students graduated in that December, and continue to remain consistent with an expected 309 combined undergraduate and graduate students.
218 out of the expected 309 students are expected to graduate with their bachelor’s degree as undergraduate students, which is on pace with past graduating class numbers.
Previous graduating undergraduates have received unlimited tickets for whomever they desired to attend their big day, except for the 2020 graduations that were held in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Without the ability to have as many chosen loved ones by their side as they would like, students question the importance of their graduation.
“This class didn’t even get a high school graduation, and now their college graduation isn’t even worth it,” said senior exercise and sport science major Hannah Smith on the Piedmont app.
Due to the coronavirus sweeping the states in the spring of 2020, this graduating class was unable to walk across the stage with their peers in high school. What they have waited a hard four years to experience now barely covers parents’ and siblings’ attendance for most families.
“It seems that we are repeating 2020,” said senior business management major Joe Helenbrook. “2024 graduates are once again forced to turn away family members and friends from celebrating this great accomplishment.”
Seniors were required to apply for graduation in Nov. 2023. On this application, it appeared as if students would be able to invite a maximum of ten guests to graduation ceremonies.
“The Self-Service [application] showing a potential maximum of ten tickets was a poll designed to see how many ticket requests the university would receive,” said Renee Fargason, Piedmont’s Assistant Vice President of Public Affairs. “Unfortunately, the number of ticket requests has greatly outpaced the number of seats we can hold. As of earlier this week we had received almost 2,600 ticket requests.”
Although the graduating student numbers look to be consistent, the expected attendance of supporting family members well surpass the capacity of the Mize and numbers from previous years.
The registrar went on to send the following in an email to upcoming graduates on Monday, March 11:
“RSVP for the event is open until March 15th. To RSVP, reply back with your name, degree, and estimated number of guests. This estimate will allow us to plan for ticket amounts. Tickets will be used for the undergraduate ceremony. More information on the amount of tickets and dispersion of tickets will be sent out in the coming. Be on the lookout for an email from this email address.”
With many students misunderstanding that the referenced ten tickets was an estimation and not a guarantee, they went on to share the only information that they had about graduation with their families.
Family and friends of graduating students booked flights and hotels in preparation to see their children, grandchildren, significant others, nephews and nieces graduate in person for the first time due to the coronavirus.
Graduates are now frustrated that they will not be able to see all of the proud faces of their loved ones supporting them in the crowd due to the estimation being inaccurate.
“I am very angry about this situation, and I don’t think that Piedmont is going to try to fix it, which is even more upsetting,” said senior educational studies major Becca Bailey.
With estimated numbers of attendees coming into the registrar over the course of the past few months, students now wonder whether the school considered renting a building or an outdoor space to accommodate the noticeably large numbers.
Seniors created and published a petition titled “Increase Guest Limit for Piedmont’s 2024 Graduation Ceremony” on change.org proposing that Piedmont relocate the ceremony to local Habersham High School or break up graduation ceremonies by major to create smaller groups.
Other students also requested that the school host a “watch party” in another building on campus where families coming into town could watch and cheer on their graduates as a group. Then, they could walk over to the Mize to greet and celebrate their graduates on campus after the ceremony concluded.
“In my eyes, Piedmont needs to give us our ten tickets or split the ceremony into two so we can have ten people,” said Bailey.
A proposed example of this is to hold separate Bachelor of Science ceremonies and Bachelor of Arts ceremonies. This allows all students to be recognized and supported by their families and friends without going over the Cave Arena’s capacity limit.
Piedmont has yet to make a comment on possibly moving the location of graduation or holding a split graduation. They have announced on multiple platforms including email and Facebook that the commencement will be live streamed for those unable to attend.
“We do understand how important this ceremony is to students and their families and we look forward to celebrating them as best we can while maintaining fire and safety standards in the Mize,” said Fargason.
The safety of the students is the university’s primary concern, however the graduating undergraduate students are continuing to press the university for change. The graduates’ goal is to accommodate their lifelong supporters’ ability to attend their achievement of graduating with a higher education degree.
The undergraduate ceremony is set to take place on May 10, inside the Cave Arena at the Johnny Mize Athletic Center at 9 a.m.
