We Shall Commence

By: Rana Abdelwahab

@ranasabdelwahab

One month into the fall 2019 semester and graduating seniors are speculating what their commencement ceremony will look like, amid fears the event could be canceled entirely.

But Vice-President for Student Life Deena Boraie quickly dispelled such rumors.

“We are improving the efficiency of the process but we are repeating what we did last year,” Boraei told The Caravan. 

“[The school based distribution of diplomas ceremony] will be this [academic] year on January 29 and 30. Basically, two schools will be on the 29th and the two other schools will be on the 30th,” she said.

Boraei explained that the distribution of diplomas is not a commencement ceremony per se, but is just for graduates to receive their diplomas and to have their photos taken with family and friends.

She previously explained that the university applied this new model of commencement as this is the common approach in most, or many other, US universities.

Last year, the fall 2018 graduates were the first to experience AUC’s first school-based distribution of diplomas. According to an article published in The Caravan last year, many who attended said they were surprised by how well the events were organized.

Still, that setup received mixed reactions from students.

The Student Union (SU) said it is trying to work around the situation.

“The SU wants to make it up for the students who are graduating in the fall semester,” said Mohamed El-Fiky, SU president.

“We will invest in the ‘Cap’N’Gown’ [ceremony] and we will make it a different cap and gown for the fall graduates. The ‘Cap’N’Gown’ this time will be a very big, special celebration for the graduates to have the chance to celebrate their graduation with their family and friends,” Fiky added.

Fiky also explained that the current regimen comes as part of a transitional phase in the university until the one cycle admission process is applied.

“The admission application will be open only to the fall semester of each year and gradually there will not be an admission application for the spring semester,” Fiky said.

Boraie said that the move to the one cycle admission started a couple of years ago and has been completed.

“We are accepting almost all new students in the fall semester and then a very small number in spring,” confirmed Boraie.

Due to this new model of the admissions process and enrollment, all students will be graduating in the spring semester anyway.

“We didn’t change the commencement model because of the one cycle admission. However, it will change by default with the future of the admission process because in a few years, there will be a very small number of graduates in the fall,” said Boraie.

“The whole idea for commencement is that we moved to one commencement per year, which is our June commencement,” said Boraie.

For the spring semester there will be a distribution of diplomas ceremony for all schools and a formal commencement on June 10 for both the fall and spring graduates together.