New Guidelines for New Graduates
EAST PEORIA — Illinois Central College will be required to limit the number of individuals present at the 2014 Spring Commencement. In order to do this, ICC will be issuing tickets to each student who will be walking in the ceremony.
“This is the first time that Illinois Central College has combined all of the graduating students from multiple semesters into one commencement ceremony,” said Cheryl Fliege, vice president of marketing and college communications at ICC.
Fliege attributed this recent change to a low attendance in the Winter Commencement in the past few years and to increasing costs to hold multiple commencement ceremonies.
With a change in how commencement ceremonies will be celebrated also brings forth a new obstacle.
“The CougarPlex has certain codes that permit only a certain amount of people in the building. This code is based on the size of the building and the amount of available exits,” Fliege explained. “The current fire marshal wants us to follow this code in order to provide a safe environment for students, guests and staff.”
To achieve this safety, ICC will be giving out tickets to each individual who will be walking in the commencement. To start, each student will receive six tickets in the mail.
“Students aren’t limited to just six tickets, however,” Fliege said. “Starting May 13th, students will be able to request for more tickets in denominations of three. This will work on a first come, first serve basis.”
However, there will be no guarantee that tickets will be available on the 13th.
“In order for us to have tickets to hand out, we need to have individuals send back the tickets that they don’t need. This will allow us to accumulate a pool of tickets to redistribute to those who need more,” explained Chief Public Relations Officer Valerie Welsh.
The second important aspect of this change is that the tickets only guarantee admittance and an open seat up until a specific time.
“At 9:15 a.m., we will start to admit guests in that are requesting entrance to the commencement, even if they don’t have a ticket,” Fliege explained. “The tickets say that they will only be good up until that time and we plan to keep that promise. If a guest were to show up after 9:15, we cannot guarantee that there will be an open seat available.”
On the day of commencement they will also have individuals, including a film crew, focused on making the experience memorable.
“This year, the film crew will be able to livestream the event online. This will allow any friends or family who couldn’t get tickets to watch from the comfort of their own home,” Fliege said.
Viewers who take this option will be able to add a level of ease, as the film crew will do their best to show the best parts of the ceremony, including a close up of each graduate. Guests can find a link to the livestream on the Illinois Central College website.
“Our main priority is to make this a safe and enjoyable commencement,” Welsh said, “As this is a completely new way we are handling this commencement, we are open to feedback on how we can improve the process of informing and guiding students to understand the policies.”
For more information on the new changes, head to the ICC website.