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By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
UGA will hold a commencement in August so students who graduate at the end of summer semester won’t have to return to campus four months later to participate in a graduation ceremony.
The ceremony, on Tuesday, Aug. 15, in Stegeman Coliseum, will be an experiment to determine the level of interest in a summer ceremony, UGA President Michael F. Adams told the University Council, which approved the proposal at its February meeting. If student and faculty participation seem to warrant it, the summer ceremony will become permanent, he said.
UGA currently holds two commencements: one on a Saturday in May for students who complete degree requirements at the end of spring semester, and one on a Saturday in December for students who complete requirements at the end of summer and fall semesters. Students who completed requirements in August, at the end of summer semester, have in the past had to return to campus in December in order to participate in commencement.
Adams suggested the summer ceremony so the August graduates won’t have to wait so long to attend a commencement exercise. He suggested holding it on Tuesday so faculty members can attend as part of their regular work-week activities.
The May and December commencements include a morning ceremony for students receiving bachelor’s and professional degrees, and an afternoon ceremony for students receiving master’s, doctoral and educational specialist degrees. Separate ceremonies are necessary because of the large numbers of students, family and friends attending each exercise.
But the number of students completing requirements in the summer is much smaller, so the August commencement will be a combined ceremony for both undergraduate and graduate students. It will include the traditional hooding of students receiving doctoral and master’s degrees.
The August commencement will be on the day before UGA’s opening convocation on Aug. 16 in Stegeman Coliseum to mark the start of fall semester. This means the stage, audience chairs, sound and video equipment and other arrangements for commencement can remain in place for the convocation.
Adams said the experiment will be evaluated for attendance, logistics and other considerations and a decision will be made on whether to hold the ceremony every year.
In other business, the University Council approved a resolution calling on Adams to study the feasibility of establishing a full-time, on-campus day-care center that would be primarily for children of university students, faculty and staff. The resolution was offered by the council’s Faculty Benefits Committee, whose chair, Charles Keith, said committee members have received “great demand” for such a center.
The only child-care facility at the university, the McPhaul Child Development Center, is partly a research unit of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and has limited enrollment and no resources to expand.
Adams said he will appoint a committee composed of faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate students to look into the idea. The committee is to report by January 2001.
In other action, the council:
• Approved a resolution from the Faculty Benefits Committee requiring that “proposed major changes” in university parking policy be reviewed by the council’s Facilities Committee, and that the benefits committee be authorized to receive faculty comments on parking policies and forward them to parking services.
• Amended the 2000-2001 academic calendar to designate the first four class days of fall and spring semesters as the official drop/add period.
• Approved a policy change to allow students earning two bachelor’s degrees to receive honors designation for both degrees regardless of whether the degrees are earned in the same semester.
•Approved the creation of the Institute for European Studies as part of the office of the associate provost for international studies and the Institute for Leadership Advancement as part of the Terry College of Business.
• Approved an Interdisciplinary Certificate Program in Atmospheric Sciences, a major in mathematics with computer science, and a minor in military science.
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