Fall commencement will be held at the end of this semester on Friday, Dec. 11 and Saturday, Dec. 12 in the Farris Center on campus. However, the ceremony will look a little different this year.
Provost and Executive Vice President of UCA Academic Affairs Patricia Poulter said commencement will be split up into five different ceremonies. “We will hold five commencement ceremonies, two graduate school ceremonies (Friday evening and Saturday evening) and three undergraduate ceremonies, to ensure we are able to accommodate physical distancing requirements on the floor for the students,” Poulter said.
Each of these five ceremonies will be approximately 45 minutes long. Normally, the ceremonies are about an hour long. Because all ceremonies must meet the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) guidelines for events, and must be approved by them, “We will submit a plan to the ADH that outlines all of our mitigation plans, how we will physically distance, maximum number of people and so forth. These guidelines comply with all CDC guidelines as well,” Poulter said.
Between each of these ceremonies, spaces will be sanitized to keep up with these guidelines.
Students who are graduating will be allowed to have guests. “Each student will receive four tickets for their guests, thereby controlling the maximum number of people that can attend each ceremony to ensure we are able to accommodate physical distancing requirements in the stands. Every person must wear a face covering for the entirety of the event,” Poulter said.
Face coverings will also be provided to anyone who shows up without one. Because of physical distancing requirements, “there can be no more than 140 graduates at each ceremony.”
The decision whether or not to have a fall commencement ceremony was a very important one to make. “We know that graduation ceremonies are an important and vital part of the student experience. It is an outward showing of the accomplishment of the student, and a way to celebrate a significant milestone,” Poulter said. “As we have learned how to host some larger campus events such as concerts at the Reynolds Performance Hall, and athletic events at the Stadium and in the Farris Center, we realized we could also, with careful planning, be able to hold commencement ceremonies.”
When campus closed down last spring due to the COVID-19 crisis, the commencement ceremonies that were planned in May were moved to online. Instead, each student’s name organized by college was shown on a screen of anyone who was watching the video.
In August those students were finally allowed to have an in-person ceremony that followed social distancing guidelines. Students weren’t allowed to shake President Davis’ hand, but they still got to walk across that stage. Any student graduating in December will be awarded this same opportunity.