Photo Credit: Luke Freeman
By: Lindsey Campbell
Milligan College will have two graduation ceremonies in May at Seeger Chapel due to lack of seating and high numbers of graduates.
With 165 traditional students and 44 ADCP or graduate professional studies, each graduate would receive four tickets each. In past years, the tickets available numbered five or six.
Interim Academic Dean Garland Young said the graduation committee did not like decreasing that number. They want each graduate to have the opportunity to invite more of their families. With two ceremonies, the ticket number will remain at six.
Even with six tickets, overflow seating will be available in the Gregory Center if needed.
“The main goal is to provide graduates and their families with an appropriate and suitable situation for a celebration of achievements,” Young said.
Several options considered by the Graduation Committee included an outside ceremony, changing venues, and having an overflow area with video feed in Gregory. None of these suggestions seemed viable.
The Committee found a solution through two ceremonies; one for traditional students and one for ADCP and graduate students to be held on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. Graduating Senior Nickie Ball approves of the plan.
“I like the idea because it gives my family more tickets to use,” Ball said. “Now my family doesn’t have to sit through a longer ceremony either.”
The two ceremonies will be identical. There will be the same choir, program, music, and keynote speaker. Robert White, Milligan MBA graduate and Chief Public Relation Officer for the Johnson City Power Board, will speak at both ceremonies.
“One of the things I am committed to is making sure both ceremonies are the same,” President Dr. Bill Greer said. “I don’t want either group of students to feel like they got less than the others.”
Commencement ceremonies have been in Seeger Chapel since it was built, Greer and the Committee want to continue that. Greer said having graduation there is special and it becomes a part of a person, and that is why “we want to protect that.”
Young said that he looks for Milligan to continue slowly growing, but campus will stay small and intimate because that makes Milligan “special.”
Due to the growth in undergraduate programs, especially nursing, two ceremonies in May could become the norm.
“This year and next year we feel very confident that we will have two graduation ceremonies,” Young said.
Milligan bases graduation size for each year off of the number of incoming freshmen.
* A correction was made to this story on March 27, 2012.
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