Graduation requires a great deal of preparation

Graduation is the culmination of not just a couple years of work; it’s a process unto itself.
Graduation for the Beatrice campus of Southeast Community College (SCC) will be held on Friday June 8, at 7 p.m. in the Truman Gym. This year’s speaker is Dr. Ally Dering-Anderson of the Omaha.
Each year, a different department is in charge of selecting a speaker for the ceremony. This year, it was up to Elina Pierce of the pharmaceutical department.
This is just one small piece to planning a graduation ceremony.
The first step a student has to take when they have completed the classes required for their program of study is to fill out a graduation application and turn it into the registration and records office by the end of the second week of the term they expect to graduate in.
Once the registration and records offices receive all the applications for graduation, the work begins. Caps and gowns are ordered and dispersed just before graduation.
The programs have to be ordered in advance as well, but the registration and records offices first have to evaluate each application. They go through the applications to confirm that each student has met all the requirements for their program of study.
They also evaluate the student’s grade point average (GPA) to identify which students have achieved the honor or graduating with high distinction, which means having a GPA of 4.0 and distinction, which means having a GPA of 3.75 or greater.
Students that have a GPA of 3.5 and higher and belong to Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) are identified. These students are recognized in the graduation ceremony as well.
The registration and records offices send each graduating student a packet containing an evaluation summary for graduation, a graduation checklist, a graduate information sheet and some information on the photographer that will be at the graduation ceremony.
SCC Beatrice holds only two ceremonies a year, one in June and the other in December.
“Only those students that apply for graduation will be processed,” said placement specialist Shirley Huttenmaier.
She also stated that if a student completes his or her degree in another quarter and the student wishes to go through the cap and gown ceremony that he or she has the option of waiting for the ceremony in Beatrice or going to the Lincoln campus and joining their ceremony.
What is surprising, Huttenmaier stated, is that many students don’t apply for their diplomas even though they have completed all the required courses in their program of study.
“I wish students who are so close to finishing all their requirements for their associate’s degree would just do it,” said Huttenmaier.
Some students may neglect to finish or apply for graduation because they are transferring to four-year schools.
There are other cases where students are only one or two classes short of graduating and then just quit.
Lila Thomas, an academic advisor, said, “Self-advising students don’t always complete just the required classes; some end up taking additional unneeded classes.”
She stressed that it is very important for students to know their advisor and go to them every quarter when registering for classes.
Campus Director Robert Morgan indicated that the Beatrice campus has a 96 percent placement for graduating students, which means that students either academically transferred or have been placed in their field of study.