Since last year, there were rumors going around that graduation may be affected by the construction on the new communications building. But those were just rumors.
My class never received any form of official communications from Provost House, Jeffrey Clark or the Senior Class Officers — the people behind this decision — about this issue, and instead heard from our parents that graduation would be ticketed.
For a university known for its communications school, I hoped to receive better and more transparent communication from the administrators and student leaders involved in making decisions about graduation.
Not only do I take issue with the fact that this was never communicated directly with the students, but more importantly, that these decision-makers displayed such a clear lack of transparency in making this decision.
How many seats of the 14,500 that were set up for graduation this past year would be lost due to the construction? How did they decide on giving each student four tickets for his or her family? Why was the senior class not told this was an issue before a decision was made and communicated with our families?
These are just some of the many questions that my fellow senior classmates and I deserve to have answered.
Yes, they gave us the opportunity to vote on a choice between two locations, but even then, how were those choices selected? Did they consider holding graduation in a larger area like Rhodes Stadium?
While I am certainly not advocating for the latter option because I have been looking forward to graduating Under the Oaks for the last three years, the decision should have been transparent. Giving seniors the choice between two options, one of which is clearly relayed in a biased manner, is not acceptable.
And sending out what might now be premature and inaccurate communications to our families is a waste of time and money for all parties involved.
So now I ask all of these people to re-evaluate their decision making process and place themselves in the shoes of the rest of the senior class.
Would they appreciate hearing rumors and secondhand information, and yet still be expected to know what is going on with graduation? Would they appreciate having their voices treated as an afterthought and only a response to negative feedback? That is how they are treating the Class of 2016. The next time they are making a decision that directly involves me, they need to tell me directly and give me the opportunity to provide my input.
Kristen DeMaria is a senior at Elon University.