North Central University Limits 2022 Graduation Guests

The class of 2022 has faced new restrictions for the Spring graduation ceremony. These restrictions entail that each graduate will only receive four tickets for family members and friends. This decision was faced with scrutiny amongst most of the North Central University (NCU) student body (graduates and non-graduates alike).

Such scrutiny was initially expressed on the NCUMemes4U Page immediately after the email notifying students of the new policy was sent out. The uproar of social media posts suggested that students were unhappy with the decision. Memes, that have since been removed from the page, expressed frustration with having to choose between giving one of the four tickets to a parent and a fiance/ee. Other memes from a student with more immediate family members than the allotted ticket amount were posted, including the following:

Let the battle begin.

On February 1, 2022, NCU junior education major Emma Amiot created a change.org petition to “Have More Graduation Invites.” Amiot is currently engaged to senior Keith (Bam) Garner. Garner is graduating this spring. Due to this new policy, she is at risk of not seeing her fiance graduate. The petition she posted received 136 signatures from NCU staff, students, and alumni. Although the petition is now closed, Amiot’s current update states, “Now I’m gonna talk to some people to see if we can get some help for this situation.” Will the signatures be enough to convince the administration to change the policy or at least compromise it? Some students commented on the petition:

“There are many reasons as to why I’m signing this. Some people have more than two parents (step-parents, etc.), so that would take up all of their tickets. This is a huge accomplishment and people should be allowed to bring their parents, grandparents, siblings, and a significant other.”  – Lexi Hunter

“I believe people should be able to bring more than 4 people to their graduation.” – Triniti Bialik

Although many of the comments on this new policy have been about getting more invitations, NCU student Brianna Laboy had other ideas. On February 3, 2022 (two days after the petition was created), Laboy posted a Google Form on NCU Market. Laboy captioned the Facebook post:

“Hey all! With NCU’s limited tickets per grad this year I am trying to find people who have extra tickets they can give away. If you are one of these people please let me know! I am getting names of people who have extra and those who need them so you can connect. I attached a document just asking if you are someone with tickets or if you are wanting tickets and how many you have/need. Also your preferred contact method!  Please share this with others so we can get as many people to graduation as we can! (This form is not through NCU, I wanted to find a way to put everyone in one place to hopefully make it easier)”

This is just one idea of potential compromise to allow people’s families to attend graduation. The only question that gets raised here is: What is the ratio of those who have tickets to give away in comparison to those who need extra tickets?

Any updates on the graduation limits and/or compromise will be posted here.