Sydney Martinez, editor in chief

Dating back to the earliest years of Berry College, graduation commencements have been held on campus. Berry administration recently announced that graduation will now be held at the Forum River Center located in downtown Rome. Graduation should not have been moved from Berry, and students should have been a part of the conversation on whether to do so.

To many students, graduation is either the first step in their higher education journey, or the last step before starting their careers. A graduation held on campus, however, is a rite of passage for all. It marks the end of our undergraduate studies with the institution we have spent years with. Moving the ceremony to an off-campus location is preventing us from graduating on the soil where we have studied, completed projects and taken exams on. 

Another downside to moving graduation off campus, is that the ceremony is now a ticketed event. At Valhalla, students could invite as many family members and friends as they wanted. The number of guests a student invites varies. Some students want to invite up to 25 people; others only want to invite their immediate family. 

Now that tickets are involved, it is unfair for the students who want to invite 25 people to have to cut down their list, and the students who won’t invite as many people are in possession of extra tickets. One thing’s for sure: students will sell the tickets they receive for free and make money off the students who want to invite more guests. That doesn’t seem fair.

Moreover, parking is a concern many students have. With graduations at Valhalla, people parked at The Cage and took a short walk to the football field. The switch to the Forum confines the amount of parking spaces down to what is available that day in downtown Rome. Downtown Rome is a popular spot for locals, especially on weekends. With graduation being on a Saturday, parking will be limited. There are few options for parking near the Forum, with only three parking decks and parking located alongside Broad Street. Guests of graduating students will have to plan time accordingly for traffic that may follow and the distance they must walk towards the graduation ceremony from their parking spot. Additionally, parking is now an added expense that families will have to make on their own, which wasn’t an issue when graduation was held on campus.

Rain is good to consider when planning events, but it should not be the main reason our graduation location is moved to an off-campus venue. Students have happily walked the stage without an umbrella to receive their hard-earned diplomas, and family members have sat in ponchos to celebrate their graduate.

Students are upset that they were not asked for input on this topic. It was not mentioned at any SGA meeting either. Students should have had a say about such a big change to one of the most important parts of their life. The graduation experience changes dramatically by moving the commencement off campus. This campus is our home, and we deserve to graduate on the same soil where we put in all our hard work towards our degrees.