University of Memphis graduate analyst, Laurie Snyder, hasnearly twice as many graduates scheduled for next spring as shedoes for this fall.
Not only are slightly more students graduating in the spring andless in the fall than in previous years, more students are gettingout in less time, according to Snyder and other experts at The U ofM.
Students are sticking with it, she said. Employers can pick andchoose whom they want, and they want that degree, Snyder said.
High school is no longer enough, she added. You need abaccalaureate at the minimum.
According to data from The U of M's Office of InstitutionalResearch web site, the number of students graduating in the fallhas dropped from 1105 in 1999 to 1037 in 2002. Students earning adegree in the spring have increased from by over 130 students forthe same time frame, from 1337 to 1470.
Snyder feels that the main reason for this slight increase inspring graduations is the loosening of the hour requirements to124. It allows students to get out faster, she said, and sheexpects the number of spring graduates to increase even more whenthe number of hours required drops again to 120 hours.
Many of the December graduates are the ones who didn't make itthrough in May and didn't want to attend summer classes, Snydersaid. Some other students may have needed a sequential course thatis not offered in the spring or summer, so they had to wait untilfall to finish their degree.
Dr. Marion Emslie, director of commencement for The University,said she can guess each semester, within 50 students, how many willparticipate in the commencement ceremony.
The last few years have pretty much the same numbers for summer,fall, and spring, she said. What's changed is the mix of theaudience.
The size of the audience is growing, she said. A few years ago,The U of M could expect 5,000 or 6,000 spectators at commencement,but that number has increased steadily to over 10,000 lastspring.
The University is pleased, she said, that more people take partin the ritual and ceremony of commencement, but the increase inpeople can cause problems.
We have to plan for more security, more noise, and lessvisibility, Emslie said.
For spring 2003, the audience filled even the top tiers of ThePyramid, so The University uses projectors to allow friends andrelatives better visibility for watching their loved ones walkacross the stage.
Emslie also said The U of M has more doctoral candidatesgraduate each semester, which is one of The University's goals.
The increase, she said, was not dramatic, but it is going upevery year, particularly in the summer. Doctoral students, shesaid, sometimes have trouble finishing their dissertations on timefor spring, and so their graduation date is often pushed to thesummer.
