VCUarts cancels fall graduation, students push back with petition
Students stand at the VCU fall 2019 commencement ceremony. CT file photo by Gessler Santos-Lopez.
Molly Manning, News Editor
VCUarts will not be holding a Fall 2025 Commencement ceremony, but instead has invited August, December and May graduates to attend the department’s spring celebration.
Departments typically have their own celebrations outside of the main, university-wide ceremonies. Fall graduates will still be able to attend the Dec. 13 university-wide commencement, but the only VCUarts-specific ceremony will be the May 8 celebration, according to the VCUarts commencement page.
Students told The CT they found out about the change not through the department, but through their professors, who told them it was due to budget constraints.
Kelly Kerr, director of communications for the school of the arts, stated the change was an effort to recognize graduates in the context of the full university community at the university-wide December commencement. She did not acknowledge the budget.
An email went out to students in September about the change, according to Kerr. Students told The CT they were not notified.
Over 100 students have signed a petition, created in August, advocating for an exclusive, fall 2025 VCUarts ceremony “in keeping with tradition and recognition of the significance of this milestone.”
The decision to only hold the spring ceremony impacts students and families, the statement reads. It cited seven reasons for maintaining the December ceremony, including travel and ticket considerations, career and graduate school transitions as well as equity and tradition.
Stephanie Corales, a painting and printmaking student graduating this December, is one of the students involved with creating the petition.
Corales said she and her friends found out about their lack of graduation ceremony through their senior seminar class, and professors told them it was due to lack of budget.
“It just sucks ‘cause we are paying tuition and we’re all supposed to be getting a ceremony, and then it’s just not happening and no one’s trying to inform us about that,” Corales said.
Corales said art students are also asked to provide their own art supplies — even though they pay an additional activity fee — which is more than other majors, she said.
“We’re being told that we need to supply paper towels even, and we have a class where we’re literally recycling paper towels,” Corales said. “So it’s kind of ridiculous that we pay so much in tuition and then they can’t even give us basic things like being able to walk for our fall graduation.”
The student petition is backed by several VCUarts faculty members, but the students have not received a response from VCU administrators, Corales said. She wants students from other majors to share the petition and speak out.
Corales noted that President Michael Rao’s recent raise — amounting to $75,000 — does not make sense, especially in the face of budget cuts for the arts department.
“It just asks the question of what VCU truly values,” Corales said.
Natacha Jacques, a third-year theatre student, said many of her peers graduating this fall would not be able to attend a spring ceremony because they will already be working or living elsewhere.
“A lot of people have concrete plans after college, and they need to pursue those plans,” Jacques said. “And if they have to do a few month waiting period and they go move, they have to come back just because they were overlooked the first time.”
Jacques said she thinks the arts program is not being prioritized in the same way other VCU programs are.
“I think that in this day and age, especially with our political climate and things like that, arts have been thrown to the wayside a little bit,” Jacques said.
