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The Decree
VOL. 17, NO. 4
''WesleyarCs Student Voice Since I960''
FRIDAY, APRIL 19,2002
Connnencement moves indoors
By MICHAEL GARCIA
The stage is set, the band is
rented, and the hall is booked. It
is time once again for May
Commencement at North
Carohna Wesleyan College.
Once more students will
engage in the time-honored
tradition of the graduation
ceremony. At NCWC that
tradition has been a ceremony on
the front lawn of the Braswell
Building, attended by members of
the community, distinguished
faculty, and as many relatives and
friends of the graduates as can
attend. However, this year things
are going to be a little different.
This year when the graduating
seniors of 2002 walk across the
stage to receive their diplomas,
they will not do so under the light
of the sun, while looking upon an
unnumbered multitude, but
instead they will do so under stage
lights in front of 1,200 people.
This year’s May Commencement
will be held in the Minges
Auditorium of the Dunn Center
for the Performing Arts.
On Mar. 19, the new president
of N.C. Wesleyan, Ian D.C.
Newbould, announced his de
cision to move graduation into the
Dunn Center. According to
President Newbould, “There is
insufficient budget to put on a
proper Spring Commencement
outdoors.” By “proper,” New
bould is referring to appropriate
staging, a better sound system,
ample protection from the sun, an
efficient system for marshaling,
ropes, and crowd control.
Newbould believes that holding
com-mencement indoors will
provide a more distinguished
atmosphere and orderly con
ditions for the ceremony to take
place.
With the commencement
indoors there will be a few
additional concerns for students.
The most distressing of these
concerns is the limit placed on the
attendance of their relatives and
friends. With graduation outdoors
the students could have as many
spectators as they wished. Now,
the seniors will have to select only
four people to attend their
commencement.
For some lucky students a
lottery held on April 17, for the
100 available seats in the Minges
Auditorium, will allow them to
have a couple more attendees. The
2002 convocation to honor
achievements of graduates
The 2002 Honors Convocation
will be held Sunday, May 5, at 2
p.m. in Minges Auditorium, Dunn
Center.
This is the one time in the
academic year when the Wesleyan
Community comes together to
recognize those students who
have achieved a high level of
academic success and who have
demonstrated excellent leadership
abilities.
Many of the students who will
be honored are graduating seniors.
This will be a wonderful oppor
tunity for students, faculty, staff,
parents and friends to celebrate
the accomplishments of our
graduates as they prepare to say
farewell to Wesleyan.
John Thompson, director of
Athletics and Men’s Basketball
Coach, will be the speaker for this
year’s convocation. Coach
Thompson was selected by Dan
Dalton, Senior Class President.
lottery winners will receive an
additional two tickets, meaning
out of the 300 graduating seniors,
50 of them will be able to have
six people attend their graduation.
Additional arrangements have
been made so that any other
attendees will be seated in Everett
Gymnasium to watch the com
mencement on a special screen.
Regardless of these measures,
many of the students at NCWC
are not happy with this turn of
events. May Graduation,
traditionally, has been held
outside and, in spite of the weather
and other unreliable factors
involved, many of the students
would prefer things to remain the
same.
“The entire senior class was
devastated to learn that this
tradition had been stripped away
without so much as asking how
we felt about it,” said Tonya S.
Bond (Chairperson, Graduation
Coimnittee).
Since the President’s an
nouncement, students have
protested, the SGA (Student
Government Association) has
held emergency meetings, and
students have brought up the
prospect of holding fund raisers,
all in an attempt to have May
Commencement moved back
outside. Despite their efforts, it
still seems that May Com
mencement will take place in the
Dunn Center.
Some students are still not
ready to give in just yet and are
considering alternative solutions
to the problem. Will this year’s
May Commencement be re
membered as an anomaly in the
college’s history or will this be the
start of a new tradition? No one
can say for sure, but the graduates
of 2003 are already taking steps
to see that they will not have to
endure the same fate as the class
of 2002.
Commencement schedule
Saturday, May 11
Commencement Speaker: Dr. John Hope Franklin
Baccalaureate Service, Leon Russell
Chapel
Reception (by invitation only).
9 a.m.
10-11:30 a.m.
invitation
President’s House
Alurnni Association Event, Bellemonte
House
Lunch Buffet ($7.95 per person),
Cafeteria, Hardee’s Building
Candidates for Graduation Assemble
Procession begins, Minges Auditorium,
Center for the Performing Arts
The College Store, located in the Hardee’s Building,
will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
10 a.m.-Noon
11 a.m.-l p.m.
12:15 p.m.
1:30 p.m.
Writers’ Series features
author Michael Malone
The North Carolina Wesleyan
College Visiting Writers’ Series
for spring 2002 will feature
Michael Malone, who will read in
the Carlton Board Room, on
Monday, April 22, at 7 p.m.
Please mark your calendars.
The reading is free and open to the
public, with a signing and a recep
tion to follow at the President’s
home.
In a letter from Michael
Malone on mysteries, he writes:
“We think of a ‘mystery novel’
as a book with a murder in it. But
all stories, like all lives, are
mysteries. We listen to stories to
meet strangers and learn their
plots. What happened before,
what happens next? We are
private eyes searching for clues to
our connections. Safe in fiction
we are testing our hearts.
“Huckleberry Finn is a murder
mystery in which the young hero
fakes his own death and learns of
his own father’s murder. Oedipus
Rex is a murder mystery in which
the detective discovers that he
himself is the killer. Who did it?
How was it done? And most of all,
why was it done? The heart of
fiction is always to get at the
secrets.
“Because murder is the highest
crime against our shared human
ness, it is to murder that the
community responds most
collectively and dramatically We
search, we unleash the law, we
expose and expel the violator.
What could be better for a
storyteller than a world of such
secrets, such discoveries, such
consequences? (It is no coinci
dence that there is a murder
mystery in almost every one of
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