Hello again!

It has been a few weeks since I left the You Make Change open for commenting and voting, and as things appear to have quietened down I'm going to take this opportunity to mark the submission as complete. This is by no means the end of the process, however - I will be writing up the points around Graduation into my handover so that Jo (the incoming VP Education & Democracy) will be able to continue the conversation next year. 

Thanks again for the submission!

Best wishes,

Sam Dedman (SUSU VP Education 2017-19, vpeducation@susu.org)

Hello!

I'm pleased to say that the Exams, Awards & Graduation team have replied to me, and have given the following response that they are happy to share:

I’m really sorry you aren’t going to be able to attend a ceremony with all of your cohort. You will hopefully get the opportunity to all get together at your reception (which will be arranged by your student office – they’ll be in touch a bit later, after the Semester 2 exam period).

The venues we use hold a maximum of 400 – 450 and we want to make sure that everyone can bring at least 2 guests with them, which sometimes means that we have to split cohorts over more than one ceremony. We work hard to avoid doing this whenever possible but unfortunately numbers sometimes defeat us.

Unfortunately there are very few venues in Southampton that are large enough – even the Southampton Guildhall isn’t large enough to provide unlimited viewing for all guests – and other theatres aren’t always suitable for those with specific health requirements (for instance, the Mayflower is very steeped/raked which isn’t suitable for anyone with mobility difficulties).

Having said that, we do continuously look for alternative venues especially if they upgrade their facilities but as most venues have a 3 – 4 year advance booking period I’m afraid that’s not possible for 2019.

I do hope that you enjoy your day and manage to catch up with your peers, and I look forward to welcoming you in July.

I hope that helps to explain why a change in venue is unlikely at this point, but could well happen going forward should something that it suitable become available. 

I'm going to leave this You Make Change submission live for a bit longer to allow commenting and voting to take place, but if you have any questions please get in touch!

Best wishes,

Sam Dedman (SUSU VP Education 2017-19, vpeducation@susu.org)

Hello!

Thanks for this You Make Change submission. I'm going to have to go to the University's Exams, Awards & Graduation team to get a more detailed answer with this, so please bear with me and I'll be back as soon as I have something to report. Note that a reply might take slightly longer that usual due to the ongoing vacation period. 

Thanks again for the submission, and best wishes, 

Samuel Dedman (SUSU VP Educaiton 2017-19, vpeducation@susu.org)