Chloe Coffield, reporter

On Aug. 5, the Office of the President announced that graduation would be permanently moved from Valhalla stadium to the Forum River Center starting spring 2027 moving forward.

Senior students are not happy with the change as this decision to move graduation off-campus was made without students’ knowledge, most not knowing until an email was sent out. President of the Student Government Association Kaylin Rezek was not informed of this change ahead of time.

“Personally, I heard right before the email was sent out,” Rezek said. “I found out three hours beforehand.”

Rezek said that seniors are upset with the administration’s decision. They were willing to walk in the rain to receive their diploma, as past classes did.

“I haven’t heard anything positive from students,” Rezek said. “My [senior] class has seen three years of graduating in Valhalla in the rain. People were always smiling walking down with their diplomas.”

However, according to Provost David Slade, this decision was not made lightly and was a collaboration between many offices.

“The change was made in large part with the president, the president’s leadership team and also in consultation with the Board of Trustees,” Slade said.

Slade shared what this change will look like from a logistics standpoint.

“It’s being moved to the Rome Forum River Center in downtown Rome,” Slade said. “There is a parking deck right next to it that came with our reservation. We’re also in discussion with the county government for additional parking decks that are downtown being open for us. We’ve also talked about opening up the possibility of providing transportation from campus.”

No exact ticket number for the new location has been officially announced yet. Slade said that the number of people a graduate can invite to the ceremony will have to go from an unlimited count to just a few due to limited seating space.

“When it’s a defined space we’re working with, you go from not having tickets to everybody having two tickets, maybe three depending on the size of the class,” Slade said.

Students question why the location for graduation has been changed if most graduation ceremonies have been held on campus. Rezek said a factor in making the change was cost.

“What [President Sandeep Mazumder] talked about a lot was pricing,” Rezek said. “It is so expensive to have [graduation] in Valhalla, especially with all of the setup. A huge worry is that normally when it rains, it gets moved to the Cage Center, and that is super expensive.”

Mazumder said that the weather has been a major factor in making this change definite.

“At a high level, I would say there was so much uncertainty with having an outdoor graduation,” Mazumder said. “The weather is one huge factor, whether it’s rain [or] the heat in May, it’s not ideal.”

Mazumder said that stress levels were high on the graduation committee and the families.

“Having to plan last-minute transitions is such a complicated thing and puts stress on the teams that organize the events, as well as the families,” Mazumder said.

In the midst of this plan coming out to all of Berry, a petition rose to bring graduation back to Berry College campus. According to senior Elizabeth Boor, students deserve for their voices to be heard on this issue.

She created a petition that was posted around Berry titled ‘Berry College Graduation Should Stay on Campus’. “I feel like everybody’s so upset that they are still in the dark right now,” Boor said. “A lot of people really just feel as though we should have had a say in the first place.”

On the students’ behalf about all the graduation discord, Boor took action where she believed that if enough people spoke up, the administration would pay attention.

“I started asking people if they felt the same way that I did because if I was the only one that felt this way, I was ready to back off,” Boor said. “I started hearing so many other different perspectives and I was like, ‘If a lot of people are feeling this way, then I’ll go ahead and make this petition to just see what happens,’ the worst thing that could happen is that I don’t get any signatures.”

With this petition being almost a month old now and having almost 900 verified signatures, Boor believes that the impact it is making on students will prevail in the face of backlash.

“If we are able to get the petition to over a thousand, I feel like that’s enough to really get them to understand how important this is,” Boor said. “I am really hoping that the higher the number is, the more they’ll listen.”

Talk of the petition has reached more than just students, present or past. Administration has taken notice of the movement and is actively watching responses, according to Slade.

“The petition is signed by a lot of people who are not Berry students, including alumni,” Slade said. “I think that there are some very important perspectives.”

Slade said that he and everyone who has worked on the graduation committee read the comments that people have left on the petition.

“Are we paying attention to the comments being left? Yes. Are we going to move graduation back to campus? We have made the decision to have graduation off-campus this year,” Slade said. “That is the final decision that has been made.”

Slade reminds students that administration, faculty and staff are not against hearing out student attempts in taking measures to create change, but a decision has been made.

“I’m not disregarding how difficult this is for students,” Slade said. “This is a decision that we have made in the best interest of all of our guests and the way it is set up. Listening to the students is not just about changing it back, but about really hearing what students are having to say in acknowledging the difficulty of it.”

Students graduating this spring will not have a graduation held on Berry Campus. But, hope remains. Though the SGA has made their argument for why they believe the plan for graduation will move forward as is currently, there remains a call to action for all those who want to make a change, and fast.

“We have a Board of Trustees meeting on Oct. 16,” Rezek said, “If there would be a time to change the plan, it would have to be before that meeting. Once it happens, everything will be set in stone.”

Boor said the call to action needs not just a listening ear, but one that is actively taking steps to intervene.

“I feel like they see this as ‘change is hard’ and that ‘sacrifices come with change,’ but I think what they aren’t seeing is that this isn’t just a little sacrifice,” Boor said. “This tradition not carrying on is a big deal and I think that there could be solutions to these problems that we can figure out so that students don’t have to sacrifice so much.”