Beginning in May, only USC President Harris Pastides will deliver commencement addresses at graduation, the university announced Wednesday.
Jeff Stensland, associate director for public relations, told The Daily Gamecock that there are a couple of reasons for the new policy.
One of these is to keep the focus at graduation on the students and their families rather than on a big-name speaker. Due to rising speaking fees, Stensland said that it has been "increasingly difficult to get three quality speakers in May," given that USC has multiple commencement ceremonies.
The university also decided to enact this policy because Pastides addresses students at their freshman convocation, so having him deliver their commencement address creates "a nice bookend" for their college careers, Stensland said.
Also beginning in May, commencement for the College of Information and Communications will take place on Saturday morning, rather than its previous spot on Friday afternoon.
In addition, starting in December, graduates will be allotted six tickets each. Graduates are asked to return any unused tickets to the university so that they can be distributed to students who want to have more than six guests.