It is almost that time of the year, Stevens! Commencement is right around the corner, and this year will mark Stevens Institute of Technology’s 147th Commencement Ceremony. The Undergraduate ceremony is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. and the Graduate ceremony will begin at 4 p.m. Each ceremony is set to last approximately 2.5 hours.
The Stute had the opportunity to sit down and talk to David Zimmerman, the Executive Director of the Office of University Events, about the upcoming event for the graduating class. Zimmerman, an alum who graduated from Stevens in 1990, said, “I did a lot of performing arts here as the theater manager at Stevens, and was in charge of the performing arts until about five or six years ago when the need for having a University Events Office seemed very important.” Before, Zimmerman actually helped with commencement on campus as the person in charge of music, but he was not running the whole show until the Office of University Events was created.
When it comes to planning for commencement, Zimmerman claimed that the “planning for this year started last July.” One thing that the office wanted to do better this year was “management of our volunteers […] we spend a lot of time making a nice venue at our expo center, but it was hard to manage so many guests and so we needed a whole team to volunteer.” Last July, the office met with the leaders of each volunteer group to start planning how to better control the crowd of guests and how to work together. Zimmerman said, “there are three groups that meet about commencement: there’s the captain’s group, the executive committee, and ‘do-ers’ group which is the graduation committee, everyone who has a hand in making this all happen.” The executive committee consists of a number of vice presidents who meet more about the order of the ceremony and help make official decisions.
Working together is one of the major keys to fulfilling the best possible commencement that Stevens has to offer. Zimmerman claims that “almost every department on campus” takes part into the planning and execution of the commencement.
Commencement continues to take place off-campus, and that is not planned to change in the near future. According to Zimmerman, “we started off campus because we really struggled to keep it on campus […] in the early-2000s, commencement took place in the Canavan arena, then we outgrew that space and then we were outside in the parking lot and outgrew that space.” It was attempted later on to have the Commencement on the field at Stevens; however, an unexpected storm hit one day and “everyone scattered in every direction […] it was horrendous.” Stevens has since settled down at the Meadowlands Expo, where this year’s Commencement will take place. Though the cost of the event was not revealed, Zimmerman says, “having the event on-campus would be a lot more expensive than keeping it off.” Stevens looked at building a tented venue for a few thousand people on the field, but the costs ended up being too high. Besides that, “parking would be another bump in the road for Stevens if they tried to bring it back,” Zimmerman states.
Lastly, Zimmerman discussed how Stevens picks the Commencement speaker every year: “There is an approximate time schedule that I put together. The speakers are given five to sevens minutes each to speak, and they are choose out of the President’s office,” Zimmerman says, “they try to find somebody that connects to the class, […] is well rounded, and does not focus on discussion around one major.” Zimmerman even claimed that the Commencement speakers are way more into it than the graduates realize. Frank Sorrentino, who is speaking for the Graduate commencement, went as far as making sure to buy a Stevens tie from the bookstore so he could wear it underneath his robe. Student speakers are given one to two minutes to speak, given that there is more than one. Student Life works with the students on their speeches, trying their best to make sure that they compliment each other.
The Office of University Events tries their best to make sure that the audience does not sit in their seats for too long while still trying to provide the best commencement possible.
Commencement this year for the 2019 graduating class is set to take place Wednesday, May 22 at the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus, NJ.
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