EVERETT — More students than ever before will earn a diploma from Everett Community College this spring.
While officials are thrilled by that, it’s caused a big problem.
Nobody knows exactly how many of those students will show up at the graduation ceremony tonight.
For the first time, the school plans to hold the graduation ceremony at its new Student Fitness Center on campus, a venue with about half the seating as last year when students walked at Comcast Arena.
That’s forced the college to limit tickets for the ceremony — something that made some graduates grumble.
“It’s the best but worst problem we’ve ever had,” said Jennifer Rhodes, the interim student activities director.
The school expects 1,834 students to earn degrees or certificates this academic year. That’s nearly 300 more than last year.
As of Wednesday, officials were guessing somewhere between 300 to 400 of those students, plus family and friends, wanted to attend the ceremony. Seating at the fitness center is limited to 2,200.
The college decided to hold the ceremony at the fitness center partly to save money, but mostly to move the ceremony to campus, said Pat Sisneros, vice president of College Services.
“It’s important to start a new tradition of celebrating student achievement in this new facility,” he said.
Every year it’s hard to estimate exactly how many students will want to walk in graduation.
In the past the school has gotten a rough total by paying attention to how many graduation caps and gowns are sold. That’s an imperfect estimate as some students borrow or buy an old gown.
Knowing that the school was moving to a smaller venue, the college thought it would try to get a more accurate number by asking students to RSVP for the ceremony.
That tactic backfired. Ads to get students to reserve a spot — along with the extra big graduation class — led to far more people wanting to walk in graduation than in the past.
By April, around 500 people told the school they wanted to walk at graduation. A typical year is in the range of 280 to 320 students.
Worried about space, staff and students at the college called every single student who had reserved a spot — all 502 — to see if they actually wanted to go and how many guests they wanted to bring, said Theresa Jaramillo of Snohomish, the student chairwoman of the graduation committee. They sent postcards and emails, too.
She and other students and staff have spent months planning the ceremony.
“We were just doing our best to make sure students would have enough tickets to bring their guests,” she said.
Even with that time-consuming effort, not every student was reached. The school solved that problem by limiting tickets to three per student and then distributing remaining tickets in a lottery to those that wanted more.
Tonight, the school plans to set up a separate room with more seating with a live video feed of the ceremony.
If the size of the ceremony continues to grow, the school may go to two separate ceremonies, Sisneros said.
Jaramillo, who plans to walk in the ceremony today, said she’s excited to see how all the months of hard planning will turn out.
“I think it will be a great ceremony,” she said.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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