Submitted Photo

Casper College 2023 graduates celebrated at commencement after being presented with their degrees. 

By LucyJane Crimm

Every college student looks forward to commencement day, but what goes on behind the scenes for graduation? Who ensures that each student completes the right credits and fills out the proper forms? Who makes sure each student is getting the information they need? And what happens if they don’t receive it? It’s a more complicated process than students may think.

Casper College’s Registrar Linda Nichols stressed the difference between graduation and commencement. She said graduation is the official process of completing the program and receiving the degree, while commencement is the celebration that happens after graduation. 

CC ‘s 2023 graduates need to note important upcoming dates- – April 1 is the deadline for students to apply for graduation, Feb. 24 – April 14 is the window for students to order their cap and gown, and commencement practice and ceremony is May 12. 

All the departments at the college play a role in graduation and commencement, but a lot of the process starts in the records department.

“Students see MyCCInfo and we [staff] have the administrative side of it that we use to process [degree evaluations],” Nichols said. “When we run a degree audit, it looks a lot like the progress that students see… But sometimes there’s unique pieces in there that are different for degrees, and we can’t make it show properly. So there’s sometimes manual edits or updates that we need to do.”

The records department handles the forms for graduation and commencement. The process starts when students fill out their first degree evaluation, typically in their third semester, to make sure they are taking the correct classes, fulfilling requirements and planning appropriately. Then in the last semester of college, students need to fill out the graduation application. Once that form is sent to records, the students are once again run through the degree evaluation process before the degree is posted. The degree evaluation process happens a third time when final grades are posted to ensure they have everything they need.

“Those are electronic forms, so the student logs in to submit those forms and then it comes to us electronically… it comes to us in an electronic queue, so then we go through and process those. Then we send them back to students electronically,” Nichols explained.

Any forms that need to be filled out can be found on the Casper College website in the records section. Graduation and commencement information and deadlines can be found on this page. If students have questions about graduation, they can email the records department. 

“When it gets to the end of the semester and we’re ready to start checking grades and posting, the name of the game is like Santa making a list and checking it twice- – and three times and four times. Just going through and making sure everyone is on the list and they’re registered for what they need to be,” Nichols said.

Walking across the stage and finally getting that diploma at commencement is a very exciting moment for most students, and the CC public relations department also plays a big part in making commencement run smoothly. From photos, to livestreams and even just hyping students up, the public relations department wears many hats. 

“We view [commencement] as a celebration of students and their achievements. We really want them to be celebrated that day, so we try to do things that assist with that,” Director of public relations Christopher Lorenzen said. “Usually, we put together the commencement program, we get it all together and produce it. We do the livestream of the events and some photography. We do the news releases about it, and then after we send out dean’s lists and presidents lists to local papers. We do social media posts to celebrate it. There’s just all kinds of little things- – we’re even helping design the diploma cover.” 

PR’s most important role on the day of commencement is the livestream they do of the ceremony. Commencement takes place in the Ford Wyoming Center and PR streams the footage and audio live onto the CC YouTube channel for family members and friends who are unable to attend. 

“I think the live stream is really important to all the families that can’t make it to commencement, especially for our international graduates,” Lorenzen added.

As is the way of life, not everything will always go according to plan. Every year around graduation and commencement, some problems arise. 

One of the biggest problems is making sure the students are receiving emails with information and completing the forms they need to. 

“Unfortunately every semester we get to the end of the semester and a student kind of shows up out of nowhere saying ‘Hey I’m graduating!’ Really? Because you never told us. We always do our best at accommodating when students miss deadlines,” Nichols said. 

Some of the challenges the PR department faces come with their biggest role, the commencement livestream. 

“The biggest challenge is putting on the live broadcast of the event,” Lorenzen said. “It takes a lot of us. It takes a whole department to support it. We’ve got it down, but there’s always something that happens that you don’t anticipate. From a bad HDMI cable to a camera that goes out, or even the internet configuration.” 

Students play a big role in graduation and commencement going smoothly. Nichols said that students can make a big difference just by checking and reading emails in a timely fashion and by paying attention to deadlines and communicating with advisors. 

The biggest factor in a successful graduation process is communication.