Students don't get diploma due to excess cheering from crowd

[UGAalum94]

It might seem stupid in the short term, but as long as there are people making sure they identify the actual guests of the graduate in question, this policy will be the most effective in the long run.

If your family is so proud of your graduation that they want to blast an air horn, they probably aren't going to risk your not getting a diploma because they made a bunch of inappropriate noise.

Many of the low class folks consider the ceremony over once their graduate's name is read anyway; getting kicked out then wouldn't be much of a penalty.

Plus, there are a lot of folks eager to make an even bigger scene when they get kicked out.

Really, following through with the graduate probably will work the best. If a graduate is worried that someone won't act right, she shouldn't invite him or her.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

It might seem stupid in the short term, but as long as there are people making sure they identify the actual guests of the graduate in question, this policy will be the most effective in the long run.

If your family is so proud of your graduation that they want to blast an air horn, they probably aren't going to risk your not getting a diploma because they made a bunch of inappropriate noise.

Many of the low class folks consider the ceremony over once their graduate's name is read anyway; getting kicked out then wouldn't be much of a penalty.

Plus, there are a lot of folks eager to make an even bigger scene when they get kicked out.

Really, following through with the graduate probably will work the best. If a graduate is worried that someone won't act right, she shouldn't invite him or her.

This assumes that the graduate gets to choose whether or not to invite her family. I'm pretty sure my parents made the guest list when I was in high school.

[AGDee]

The statement the student makes in the last line of the article was one of the first things that I thought of. If there was some grudge against an individual, people could excessively cheer for that student and get that student in trouble. How do they prove that the excessive cheers were done by that person's family?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

This assumes that the graduate gets to choose whether or not to invite her family. I'm pretty sure my parents made the guest list when I was in high school.

Right, but your parents probably wouldn't invite anyone likely to cause you to lose your diploma.

As far as it not really being that person's guests, I'm sure that can be checked out by the same folks doing the monitoring for crowd behavior. (Ticket numbers if they use tickets, using tickets in the future if they don't now.)

It's not that I think this policy is flawless, but do you really think those weren't her guests? Even she seems to express it as a "what if" kind of a statement.

Anyway, something needs to be done, and I applaud (and air horn) this school's efforts.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

Right, but your parents probably wouldn't invite anyone likely to cause you to lose your diploma.

As far as it not really being that person's guests, I'm sure that can be checked out by the same folks doing the monitoring for crowd behavior. (Ticket numbers if they use tickets, using tickets in the future if they don't now.)

It's not that I think this policy is flawless, but do you really think those weren't her guests? Even she seems to express it as a "what if" kind of a statement.

Anyway, something needs to be done, and I applaud (and air horn) this school's efforts.

We didn't have tickets or invites or anything. Everybody knew when graduation was and everybody went. I had a class of over 700 and we had our graduation in the Pontiac Silverdome, which held 85,000 people. It would have been impossible to monitor.

I agree that something should be done, but to the guests, not the students. Students have no control over how their guests behave.

When my daughter was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society last week, some of us parents were teasing the girls in her group that we were going to hoot and holler when their names were called. The girls were horrified at the thought. Of course, we weren't going to really do it, but the looks on their 13 year old faces were classic when we threatened!

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I agree that something should be done, but to the guests, not the students. Students have no control over how their guests behave.

But they're the only ones the school can realistically expect to influence. And their guests could be influenced by them to act appropriately if they understood the consequences.

I think we're either going to go for free for all graduations will no expectations for behavior or we'll start to see tickets given to graduates and guest lists of people that the graduate accepts responsibility for.

I suspect that kicking people out for disruption and arresting people who refused to leave probably wouldn't play any better and would actually be worse, but I'm afraid that's the other option.

The note about your daughter touches on a point worth making: you all weren't going to really do it, but I think some of the bad behavior at graduation is against the graduates wishes. So let's empower them to choose their guests and hold them responsible for the ones that they do invite.