EDITORIAL: SGA’s legislation on commencement tickets is what students need


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We see it before every commencement: “Does anyone have tickets I can have?"

Students at Central Michigan University are constantly searching for more tickets for commencement ceremonies based on CMU’s policy of only four tickets per graduate every season. 

This results in students who need more tickets for family members and friends, to go searching on social media, to find and buy those tickets from people who don’t need them.

There needs to be a solution.

And there can be, thanks to new legislation proposed by the Student Government Association. 

At its March 11 meeting, SGA introduced legislation, “A Resolution in Support of the Revision of Commencement Ceremony Ticket Redistribution.” The legislation is proposing “a regulated ticket pool system would allow students who do not wish to use all their allotted tickets to have those tickets redistributed and would discourage those students from selling their extra tickets.” 

Author of the legislation, senate leader Caroline Murray, shared how this issue has affected her — having to tell her grandma that she won’t be able to come to her graduation ceremony due to not having enough tickets. 

We shouldn’t have a policy where we have to turn family members away at one of the most memorable moments of our life. 

This change is something students need at CMU. They shouldn’t have to worry at the time of their graduation whether or not their family members will be able to see them celebrate the end of their college careers.

While this legislation goes through the voting process, we urge all members of SGA to vote yes on this to get it to the Academic Senate. We then urge all academic senators to approve this. The students need this and this is a way to combat an issue that doesn’t seem to be going away.

If this comes before the CMU Board of Trustees, and hopefully it will, we urge Trustees to instill this ticketing pool into policy. The university is always aiming to provide student success and give students what they need. This is what they need.

Students shouldn’t have to go through another commencement season deciding which family members get to go to their graduation, while other students sit on unused tickets. 

Listen to the students and their needs, CMU. We thank SGA for proposing this legislation that could help graduates to come for generations. 

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