UC Davis sets makeup dates for heat-tarnished graduation ceremonies. Here are the details
Following last month’s botched, shortened commencement ceremonies that saw at least six people taken to hospitals amid extreme heat, the University of California, Davis, has announced three makeup dates to allow students from the class of 2022 to walk.
Two of the three dates are about a month away: Aug. 26 and Aug. 27, each at 10 a.m. The third is Dec. 10, at 2 p.m.
All three ceremonies will be held indoors at the University Credit Union Center, UC Davis campus officials announced Tuesday. Cap and gown rentals will be provided free of charge.
Temperatures in Davis ratcheted up to the mid-90s before noon on June 10, the first of the three originally scheduled spring undergraduate commencement ceremonies.
An announcement over the public address system told attendees that conditions had become “dangerous,” and officials ended the ceremony around 11:30 a.m. with more than 1,400 students — close to two-thirds of the roughly 2,300 in attendance — not yet having crossed the stage.
According to a university spokesperson, the campus received 36 medical calls, most of them for heat-related issues. Seven were transported to local hospitals, at least six of them with heat illness.
UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May in a statement following the incident said the campus started to run low on drinking water as the event, scheduled to last two hours, ran far behind schedule.
May also acknowledged, as photos and video from the event showed, that students on the blistering football field had almost no access to shade.
The first day’s crisis led to a flurry of alterations, some of which were announced then quickly reversed, to the June 11 and June 12 graduation ceremonies as heat lingered in the weekend’s forecasts.
Campus officials first said students’ names would be read during the June 11 ceremony but they would not be allowed to cross the stage. That plan was scrapped last-minute to allow students to take the stage, though the initial change may have deterred some students and families from attending.
UC Davis in recent weeks sent a survey to students in order to gather feedback for makeup options.
“Consistent with the commencement survey feedback, please expect a traditional ceremony format with students crossing the stage and having their names read,” Tuesday’s announcement read.
The makeup ceremonies will be open to students of all UC Davis colleges and majors who were registered for any of the spring undergraduate ceremonies.
Students must complete a new registration for the August and December makeup ceremonies, which can be accessed at ucdavis.edu/commencement.
May said the university would be conducting a comprehensive review of June’s failed commencement event. That review has not yet been completed.
Failed graduation ceremony was first under new format
This year’s ceremonies were to be the university’s first held in a traditional format since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Commencement was held virtually in 2020, and in small pods in 2021.
The June ceremonies were also the first under a new plan by the chancellor to consolidate undergraduate commencement from seven events – one for each college – down to three.
That consolidation required a larger venue than the indoor student union, where commencement had been held in previous years, leading to this year’s ceremonies being held at UC Davis Health Stadium for the first time.
A university news release announcing the new plan, originally slated for 2020 before derailment by the pandemic, said the consolidation would “put more emphasis on our institution as a whole, as one of the leading public universities in the nation.”
May in a prepared statement at that time also said it would hopefully draw more “noteworthy speakers.”
Instead, speeches for the second and third days of undergraduate commencement were scrapped, with the day’s planned speakers recording their speeches to “be sent to graduates at a later date,” according to a university statement.
The same news release announcing the new format told students to “rest assured” because the commencements would be held in the morning to “avoid the afternoon heat.”
This story was originally published July 27, 2022 at 10:18 AM.
