Brendan Abrams
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As fall quarter reaches its end and most students get ready for the holidays, some 942 Cal Poly graduates will walk the stage and have something more to prepare for — the next chapter of their lives.
Fall commencement does not quite match the scale of its spring counterpart, but it is equally important to students and faculty.
The three ceremonies this year will all take place on Dec. 13 in the Recreation Center, all immediately followed by a reception featuring light refreshments and a performance by the Cal Poly Jazz Band for students and their supporters in the University Union Plaza.
The first ceremony, at 9 a.m. for the schools of Science and Math and Agriculture, Food & Environmental Sciences, will receive a keynote speech from agriculture alumnus Manuel Cunha, Jr. The second ceremony, for students graduating from the College of Liberal Arts and Orfalea College of Business, will hear from business alumnus Quentin Lilly. And finally, brothers Daniel and Kyle Wiens — a construction management alumnus and a computer science alumnus, respectively — will speak at the ceremony for the College of Architecture and Environmental Design and the College of Engineering.
Commencement is always an exciting time for Cal Poly, but this one in particular brings some additional excitement for commencement staff and the loved ones of this year’s graduates. For the first time, all the ceremonies will be viewable online as a livestream at commencement.calpoly.edu.
“Students have been asking for (a livestream) of the ceremonies for awhile now, so we’re going to test it out,” commencement administrative coordinator Katie Stubberfield said.
Now, friends and relatives from anywhere in the world can watch their beloved graduates walk across the stage, even if they are unable to make the trip to San Luis Obispo.
This technology promises to be very popular, possibly even to a fault.
“We just hope the site can handle the number of viewers we expect to have,” Stubberfield said.