(12-27-2013 04:36 PM)Mister Jennings Wrote:  The has proven to be one of the best home court advantages in all of college basketball over the years. Murry is looking for anything to blame to keep his job. They have a different fire Marshals at Idaho State because they don't have attendance restrictions. ETSU needs to bite the bullet and do whatever the fire Marshal wants to get it's capacity up to the 12,000 seats that are in there. It would be great to have only one graduation ceremony. What would really be killer is to get 14,000 back in there for events like it was for the Marshall football game all those years ago. How much is it gonna cost? Level with us. Is it just a matter of putting twice as many door in the joint on floor level? ETSU needs to get this done....and Noland is just the man to do it. In the meantime, if ETSU wants to use Freedom Hall, that's fine but fill that midget arena up. I've said it before and I will keep saying it till something is done....ETSU has 2000 faculty and staff....15,000 students. There is no excuse to attendance at any game to be less than 10,000 with that in mind. Incentives to those you have relationship should be actualized. Teachers should motivate their students to be there as a homework assignment. English teachers....make them all write about some aspect of the game...Math teachers, make them do some sort of statistical analysis and so on for every class on campus. I don't understand why this isn't accomplished.

A single 4 hour or more graduation ceremony? You can't be serious.

i agree with the single graduation ceremony- and so does Noland by the way. We used to do a single ceremony and thats the way it should still be.

However, this is college. Professors do not need to be coercing their students into going to a sporting event by assigning it as a homework assignment. There are very few classes on campus where such an assignment would be appropriate- and there is no way in the world that the administration can somehow force the faculty to do that.

You cannot force the community and students to care. And with the increased push to attract students in other cities that never actually come to campus- they obviously will not have the same college experience as those on campus, and I do not see why they would be interested in coming to a game. The best bet is to really engage the greek groups to show up and be loud more than once a season. I don't know how you do that either.

(12-28-2013 07:07 AM)etsubuc Wrote:  i agree with the single graduation ceremony- and so does Noland by the way. We used to do a single ceremony and thats the way it should still be.

However, this is college. Professors do not need to be coercing their students into going to a sporting event by assigning it as a homework assignment. There are very few classes on campus where such an assignment would be appropriate- and there is no way in the world that the administration can somehow force the faculty to do that.

You cannot force the community and students to care. And with the increased push to attract students in other cities that never actually come to campus- they obviously will not have the same college experience as those on campus, and I do not see why they would be interested in coming to a game. The best bet is to really engage the greek groups to show up and be loud more than once a season. I don't know how you do that either.

Everything that can be cut from the ceremony has been cut, the ceremony has been cut to about 20-25 minutes, everything else is the parade of graduates across the stage. As long as everyone wants to walk across stage, ETSU can't have a single graduation ceremony.

BTW, the decision for two ceremonies was done after polling graduates: one ceremony with only graduate students walking across stage, or two ceremonies with everyone walking across stage. Two ceremonies was the overwhelming winner.

And contrary to your belief, Noland doesn't want a single 4 hour graduation ceremony. No one, including graduates and families wants to sit through that. Everyone involved with graduation wants a single ceremony, but...

ETSU didn't use to graduate 1500 students in December and 2000 students in the Spring.

For those with short memories, when ETSU had one ceremony, many graduates walked across stage and then out the door to meet their families, leaving a near empty dome by the time graduation was concluding. That was quite an embarrassment and coupled with the 4 hour time lead to the splitting the ceremonies.

In a very extensive interview on the JC Press, the full content of which I believe was copied to a post on here about a year ago, Noland said it was silly to have two ceremonies and that he wanted a convocation center so that we could have it all in one ceremony.

(12-28-2013 09:15 AM)etsubuc Wrote:  In a very extensive interview on the JC Press, the full content of which I believe was copied to a post on here about a year ago, Noland said it was silly to have two ceremonies and that he wanted a convocation center so that we could have it all in one ceremony.

First of all, to be realistic a new convocation center is 15-25 years in the future. The Fine and Performing Arts Center has been in the master plan since at least 1986. That's 27 years and not a shovel of dirt has been moved. Tennessee moves slowly in funding anything for higher education, if it moves at all. When it moves it traditionally funds community colleges first, universities second.

The article you refer to was probably before the poll of graduates was taken and it was thought that the ceremony would be modified to grad students only walking across the stage. ETSU serves a large number of first generation college students who feel it is important to walk across stage to receive their diplomas. If that changes, a single ceremony would be great.

As stated above, no one involved with graduation wants two ceremonies, but no one, including Dr. Noland, wants a 4 hour (or more) ceremony either.