XL Center Not Available at Traditional Date and Time

By Kassondra Granata

While 2011 commencement ceremonies are all set for the usual XL Center setting and first Saturday after finals date, administration has been met with a problem for next year’s ceremonies.

President Jack Miller, Student Affairs Vice President Laura Tordenti and Provost Carl Lovitt were on hand at the Student Government Association’s meeting Wednesday to let the senate know that the XL Center in Hartford is not available for next year’s commencement ceremonies at its usual date and that a decision for other plans must be made soon.

With exams ending on Friday, May 11 next year the goal was to hold the ceremony that next day. Putting a potential squash on continuing the use of the traditional XL Center was the announcement that the venue would not be available that day or the following Saturday, May 19.

Nicholas Pettinico, associate vice president of institutional advancement and university marshall, said that the XL Center, formerly the Hartford Civic Center, has been the site of commencement ceremonies for “a long time,” likely since the early 1990s.

Lovitt opened up a handful of options to the consideration of the senate.

One of the possibilities was to hold the ceremonies on a weekday between being Tuesday, May 15 and Friday, May 18 or Monday, May 21 at the available XL Center.

The second alternative was to change locations and bring commencement to the Connecticut Convention Center on Saturday, May 19. It was noted that limited seating and guests would be a drawback to using the convention center. The XL Center would be a more spacious venue and has an unlimited amount of guests.

“To our knowledge the XL Center is the only facility that is able to accommodate an unlimited number of guests for the number of graduates that we have,” said Lovitt.

The final possibility would be to keep the ceremony at home by holding the event on campus inside either Kaiser Hall Gymnasium or Welte Auditorium. That option would lead to the breaking up of the event into more than one ceremony to accommodate the small size of the venues.

Both Sen. Ashley Foy and Sen. Erika Dawson-Head agreed with having the ceremony on campus.

“I really like the on-campus option,” said Dawson-Head. “It makes it more personal and I think that sometimes when you’re in the huge XL Center and you have all these students around you, it would be so nice to have a smaller, more intimate setting where students can actually feel part of the team that is there.”

The senate questioned whether Kaiser or Welte would be more suitable to hold the ceremony.

“I feel like a lot of people have friends in other schools and just to graduate with them is meaningful to people,” said Interim Vice President Elizabeth Braun, who said that the option of holding commencement on a weekday at the XL Center was the best.

Sen. Heidy Sanchez  agreed with Braun.

“XL Center is a good option only for the sake of tradition,” said Sanchez. “I know students whose parents and family members went here and they just want to walk the same venue.”

Much of the senate agreed that the weekday XL Center option was the best.

“I completely agree with the Friday night, the XL Center,” said Interim President Jamie Canny. “I think that it is a fantastic option even though it’s not a Saturday. As long as it’s at night and work is not an issue for parents taking it off then I think that it is fine.”

No timetable for a decision was given by administration.