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Thursday, March 28, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

The Fall graduation that keeps disappointing: speaker and all

Last week, I met with UF President Kent Fuchs regarding the commencement ceremony changes, and one notion he communicated to me stood out. He firmly believed, despite almost 12,000 signatures that said otherwise, that he was only adding value to UF students’ graduations, not taking anything away.

One of the big reasons behind this was that now we could get a notable guest commencement speaker at our university-wide graduation who would excite all graduates. This speaker was even teased with a reference to Ellen DeGeneres, so needless to say, the bar was set pretty high. Yesterday, UF announced that this individual would be Stephen Stills.

I will start by conceding that Stills has a distinguished music career and his status as an inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is remarkable. This, however, does not take away from the fact that after the news was announced, many of us found ourselves consulting Google and YouTube to find out who he was. Reaction to the news on social media was underwhelming to say the least. I mean no disrespect to Stills and his remarkable career, but if Fall graduates could not be given the graduation ceremony they wanted, in the venue they desired, then they should, at the very least, get a guest commencement speaker they know, recognize and are excited to hear from. I couldn’t get away from the fact that this commencement speaker seemed like someone even Accent Speakers Bureau wouldn’t book on campus. This is not because Stills is not famous or talented but because UF students grew up in a different time and era than his music. It’s no secret that when it comes to a guest commencement speaker, graduates want to hear from individuals we can relate to and have grown up admiring.

This booking was a big opportunity for UF to reassure upcoming Gator graduates that this new commencement ceremony structure wouldn’t be so bad. Sadly, we, as future graduates, continue to be disappointed. I personally find it hard to continue to reassure Fall graduates that their graduation will be memorable when UF has ignored student opinions, booked ceremonies in the Florida Gym and Reitz Union Grand Ballroom, scheduled these ceremonies to conflict, limited family attendance in smaller venues based on tickets and now has booked a guest commencement speaker whom parents know more about than graduates themselves. UF is doing themselves no favors with this new graduation system, and I can’t find an explanation other than that which many are already thinking: UF simply doesn’t care.

They care so little that they didn’t even bother to spend any money on this guest commencement speaker. That’s right, the first guest commencement speaker at a UF graduation in almost four decades will not be paid a penny for his speech. Meanwhile, Pitbull is being paid $130,000 plus travel expenses to speak for Hispanic Heritage Month next month.

To so many of us, it’s extremely disheartening that for years we have had to try our hardest to earn our diploma, and now UF administration can’t even seem to bother to try or put any effort into planning a noteworthy Fall graduation. To Fuchs, I would say the following: It’s difficult to add value to our graduation when you book a guest commencement speaker you didn’t even bother to pay a cent for.

Anthony Rojas is a UF second-year political science master’s student who organized an online petition to return UF’s graduation ceremony to its prior format after graduates of color were rushed from the stage in May. The petition gained 8,200 signatures in its first day.

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