Separate graduation ceremonies planned for three schools

The schools of education, pharmacy, and fine arts in May will have individual commencement ceremonies, as the University takes a first, tenuous step away from the two massive ceremonies it has convened for decades.

Speakers will be selected by individual school committees.

"We've been edging ever closer to maximum capacity in Gampel Pavilion, and were at the point where we would have to consider limiting tickets," says Michael Darre, chair of the Commencement Committee and University Marshall.

"So we asked whether anybody would be interested in developing their own ceremony, and these schools stepped forward."

Darre says having separate events is being done on an experimental basis, and a decision on whether to continue offering the multiple ceremonies - and extend them to other schools and colleges - will be made in the months following this year's ceremonies.

"The test is whether the students enjoy it," says David Woods, dean of fine arts, "that they don't feel left out, isolated from the other graduates."

So far, so good, he says, noting that when the idea was posed to the school's Student Advisory Council, "every student member felt it would be a better opportunity for our students to be recognized, to walk across the stage, and have their name read."

The Faculty Advisory Council concurred, he says.

School of Pharmacy officials have held a hooding ceremony in the Lewis B. Rome Ballroom prior to graduate commencement exercises since 2003.

This May, school officials will continue the tradition, and add the distribution of diplomas to the hooding of about 90 Pharm.D. students.

The PharmD is a professional degree, required to sit for licensure in Connecticut.

At the mid-way point in the program, students are awarded a bachelor's degree in pharmacy studies; they then continue their education for two more years.