Nicholls State University will have three separate commencement ceremonies this December to accommodate as many graduates and guests as possible.

“We’re having more graduates graduate than we did a few years ago. Last May, we had two graduations, and in one of them, Stopher gym was jam-packed, which caused fire marshal issues. We had way more people in the building than meets code,” Lynn Gillette, provost and vice president of academic affairs said.

Through working with the fire marshal, it was determined that the maximum capacity of Stopher gym could not exceed 2,560 people, and the department of academic affairs faced the issue of arranging a solution to accommodate both students and guests.

“The first decision was to go to three commencements for the best interests of our students and their families, so our office worked with the registrar to see how many people were going to graduate in each college,” Gillette said.

The three ceremonies will be separated into the College of Business Administration and the College of Nursing and Allied Health, the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education. All three ceremonies will be held in Stopher gym on the same day, but at different times.

“The College of Arts and Sciences was separated by itself because they’re the biggest, and business and nursing being grouped together just came down to size. We determined how to split everything up strictly based on numbers, and it just came out that way. It has nothing to do with any program being more special or less special than any other program,” Gillette said.

Given the cap on the number of people present, the amount of tickets distributed to each student will be an initial set amount.

“Right now, each graduate can get seven tickets the first go around, but then we will have options set in place to allow students to get more tickets. We didn’t want to try to limit people, but we also had to make it fair,” Gillette said.

Following the first round of tickets, students will have the opportunity to obtain more tickets based on how many are left over.

“Our next goal, after that first administration, is to see what is left in each one of these sets that will be graduating. From that, we will calculate a number of extra tickets to go for the second round. That number may be two, it may be four, we don’t know yet. We’d have to see what’s left after that,” Todd Keller, associate vice president for academic affairs, said.

Obtaining extra tickets is a two-day process, after which, there will be another recount and recalculation of left over tickets. Departmental and administrative assistants will be taking count of which students are requesting the given number of tickets, and if there are available tickets, graduates may receive them.

“That Friday before graduation, based on what’s left, we will make some phone calls and say you can come and pick them up. We just want to be as fair as possible to every single graduate, so that everyone has an equal chance of having their loved ones there,” Keller said.

Combining those students receiving an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree, there will be a total of 674 graduates this fall, which is consistent with previous values over the last four years.

However, over the calendar year, there will be a total of 1,377 students, which will be the largest number of graduates in one calendar year for Nicholls State University so far.

“As we increase enrollment, that will increase the amount of graduates, which will ultimately increase the amount of commencements. In the short term horizon, we’re looking for three if not more commencement ceremonies,” Gillette said.