Commencement at Central Connecticut State University

Central Connecticut State University's annual undergraduate commencement exercises are held on campus each May. From 1989 to 2016, separate graduation ceremonies were held for recipients of postgraduate degrees. Additional midyear undergraduate commencements were held at the end of the fall terms from 1988 to 1993^[1][2] and at several other points in the university's history, most recently in 2022.

From 1884 to 1994, Spring commencement was held on the CCSU campus in New Britain, but due to a lack of space and concerns about the weather, it was moved to the Hartford Civic Center, which was renamed the XL Center in 2007.^[3] Since 2018, commencement exercises have been divided into morning and afternoon sessions to accommodate increasing numbers of graduates and audience members. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 exercises were held virtually, and beginning in 2021, the ceremony was moved back to campus.

Prior to moving to its present location on Stanley Street, the school, then known alternately as the "State Normal School" and the "New Britain Normal School," occupied what is now called the Camp School building in downtown New Britain.

The graduation ceremony for the first class (numbering five graduates) took place on October 1, 1851, in the old South Congregational Church.^[4] Commencements continued to be held off-campus until 1885. No ceremonies were held in 1868 or 1869, as the school's operations had been suspended by state officials.^[5][6] From about 1873 to 1885, two graduations were held each year: a "first class" in January and a "second class" in June. In 1884 the college moved into the new Camp building. From that time until 1925, an average of about 80 students (nearly all young women) received teaching diplomas each year at a graduation ceremony in the school's assembly hall on a weekday morning in late June.

From 1925 to 1935, commencement was held in the auditorium of the school's new building on Stanley Street. The first outdoor commencement ceremonies were held in 1936, in the college's amphitheater.^[7] The arrangement of an outdoor ceremony—held indoors in case of rain—continued until the 1990s. Over time, the location of the outdoor exercises included the college quadrangle and first of two athletics fields known as "Arute field." By the late 1940s, a building named "Memorial Hall"^[8] was used for those commencement exercises moved indoors because of rain, such as the 1955 event.^[9] In 1959, the college, which had been renamed "Teachers College of Connecticut" in 1933, became "Central Connecticut State College".^[10]

When it rained on the day of the 1963 graduation,^[11] the ceremonies were moved into the campus' newest structure, Herbert D. Welte Hall.^[12] Although Welte Hall was employed from 1989 to 2013 for CCSU's annual graduate commencement, as well as for graduations of Tunxis Community College, Charter Oak State College, nursing and police academies and high schools, it was soon too small to serve as an indoor backup facility for CCSU's annual commencement.

By 1965, with the number of CCSC graduates having doubled to 684 since 1960, the quadrangle could barely hold the more than 2,000 attendees,^[13] and the following year the exercises were moved to another new building, Harrison J. Kaiser Hall, which had been dedicated September 18, 1965^[14]—but soon the annual graduation ceremonies threatened to outgrow even Kaiser, which was designed to seat 4,500 spectators (not including those on the gym floor). One newspaper report referred to "3,500 people stacked up to 22 rows high," "stewing" in the June heat at the 1967 event;^[15] another article the following year describes "the estimated 5,700 jammed into steaming Kaiser Hall for the program."^[16]

From 1969 to 1993, undergraduate commencement took place on Arute Field, a football facility in the northeast corner of campus, with the gymnasium in Kaiser Hall used occasionally in the event of rain.

As graduating classes continued to get larger (e.g., 322 graduated in 1960, 696 in 1966, 1274 in 1969, and over 2400 in 1975), officials stopped reading the names of individual graduates during the undergraduate exercises. The reading of names was reinstated in 1992.^[17] The last on-campus commencement was held on Friday, May 28, 1993. Antonia C. Novello, US Surgeon General,^[18] was the commencement speaker; she and Andrzej Wiszniewski, the Rector of the Technical University of Wrocław, were also awarded honorary doctorates at the ceremony.

The discussion to relocate CCSU's annual commencement ceremonies to the Hartford Civic Center was explained by Kauffman in the Hartford Courant:

For the first time, Central Connecticut State University in New Britain will hold its graduation exercises off campus. They will be at the Hartford Civic Center May 28 [1994]. The reason: a space squeeze on campus. When the weather is good, commencement is at Arute Field, the school's football stadium. When it rains, ceremonies are moved indoors to Kaiser gymnasium, where graduates are limited to two guest tickets.^[3]

A few months after the first Hartford commencement in 1994, CCSU's administration announced the discontinuation of December commencements, citing the wishes of December graduates to participate in the Hartford ceremony in May. In October, 600 CCSU students signed a petition to reinstate the event,^[19] which was not held. However, December commencements were begun again a few years later.

Before Hartford graduations became institutionalized, it was believed by some that they would be temporary—that "whenever CCSU has an adequate place on campus, the ceremonies can be moved back."^[20] Indeed, since 1994, the state of Connecticut has funded a number of studies to address the university's lack of space. One, in 2004, explored the possibility of a CCSU sports arena at the present location of the New Brite Plaza Shopping Center, about 1.6 miles (2.6 km) from the main campus.^[21]

Two changes took effect in the 2017-2018 academic year. First, graduate and undergraduate commencements were co-located; the last graduate-only commencement was held in May 2017. Second, May ceremonies at the XL Center were divided into two separate sessions to accommodate the growing number of graduates and family members who wished to attend; an on-campus Winter commencement was also added for both undergraduate and graduate students.

The 2020 ceremonies were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly before the traditional commencement date in May, the university secured permission to schedule exercises for Sunday, October 11, at the XL Center.;^[22] but due to state COVID guidelines, the event was cancelled in September and replaced with a virtual ceremony which was held on Saturday, October 17.

In April 2021, with the loosening of state guidelines governing in-person gatherings, the university announced that commencement exercises would be held on campus for the first time since 1993. To ensure social distancing, a total of four commencements (one for each of the University's four academic schools) were conducted over two days at Arute Field. This was reduced to two ceremonies on one day in 2022. In December of that year, a winter commencement was held in Welte Hall for the first time since 2018.

The ceremony is declared "open" by the president of CCSU's faculty senate. This is followed by the national anthem, sung by the CCSU University Singers. Other preliminaries have included an invocation by a member of the campus ministry, greetings from state officials, and brief remarks from the president of the CCSU Alumni Association. Greetings are also presented by students representing the graduands and by a representative of the Board of Regents of the state university system.

This is followed by a commencement address by a previously announced speaker, the singing of the Alma Mater, and the conferral of degrees. At Hartford commencements, a pair of announcers (often including professor Gil Gigliotti) read the names of each graduate present at the ceremony, after which the event ends with the drop of hundreds of balloons from the ceiling of the XL Center.^[23] In 2018 a ceremonial recession, led by the university's athletic mascot, was added to the event.

CCSU's Wind Symphony provides processional and incidental music before and during the ceremony.^[24][25] Both the Wind Symphony and University Singers perform under the direction of professors from CCSU's Department of Music.

The procession includes the University Mace (usually borne by the president of CCSU's faculty senate) and occasionally the University Staff. Peter J. Vernesoni, a CCSU graduate and professor from 1971 to 2003, designed and carved both of these artifacts.^[26]

CCSU's commencement speakers are often successful alumni such as Congressman John B. Larson (D-1st), CitiFinancial CEO Michael Knapp, and CCSU professor Kristine Larsen. In 2018 two ceremonies were held on May 19, each honoring both graduate and undergraduate students: a morning session for the liberal arts, social and natural sciences, engineering, and technology majors; and an afternoon session for those majoring in business, education, and other professional studies. This was also true in 2019.

The table below lists the commencement speaker for each commencement while the ceremony was held annually at the XL Center in Hartford, from 1994 through 2019. Each ceremony took place on a Saturday unless otherwise noted.

Much of the information in this table was compiled from CCSU's annual Commencement Exercises programs.

Notes: (a) Commencements took place on Saturday mornings unless noted otherwise; (b) speaker awarded an honorary degree or other recognition during the ceremony; (c) speaker graduated from CCSU.

Beginning with the COVID-impacted 2020 graduation, nearly every commencement speaker has been a CCSU graduate.

Much of the information in this table was compiled from CCSU's annual Commencement Exercises programs.

Notes: (a) Commencement events took place on Saturday at Arute Field, unless noted otherwise; (c) speaker graduated from CCSU.

Through 2017, a separate graduate commencement was held on campus, usually within a week of the undergraduate ceremony. In the past, December commencements have also been held.

These events were held on campus at Welte Auditorium except for graduate commencements in 2014 through 2017, which took place in the Kaiser Gymnasium.

The information in this table was compiled from CCSU's annual Commencement Exercises programs.

Notes: (a) Miller was the president-designate until the "Ceremony of Investiture," which preceded his address; thus he is listed as "President" here. His de facto presidency had begun the previous June. The degrees were conferred after the investiture and address. (b) speaker awarded an honorary degree during the ceremony; (c) speaker graduated from CCSU; (d) speaker's daughter graduated from CCSU.

CCSU has awarded more than fifty honorary doctoral degrees since 1985.^[71] Awardees have included the CEOs or Chairmen of six major corporations, eight heads of state, and a variety of others. About half of these have been awarded at commencement ceremonies, and in most of these cases, the conferee has given the commencement address. Although significant non-degree honors have historically been awarded by the institution, honorary doctorates were not conferred until after Central Connecticut State College was renamed Central Connecticut State University in 1983. U.S. President Jimmy Carter became the first recipient on April 16, 1985, receiving a Doctor of Humane Letters.

In addition to Carter, U.S. Presidents Gerald R. Ford (L.H.D., 1988), George H. W. Bush (LL.D., 1999), and George W. Bush (LL.D., 2001) received honorary CCSU degrees. József Antall Jr., Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary (LL.D., 1991); Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada (D.S.Sc., 1994); Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (L.H.D., 1993); and Lech Wałęsa, President of Poland (L.H.D., 1996) also received honorary CCSU degrees. Each of these was a former head of state of the conferral of his degree except for Antall and George W. Bush.

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