Lance Camp did not expect renovations at SIU Arena to prevent his sister from watching him graduate from law school.

The law school’s graduation was during commencement weekend in the past, but this year Camp and his classmates will graduate from the SIU School of Law Thursday. Missing from the audience will be Camp’s sister and brother-in-law because they were unable to get off work, he said.

Camp, a third-year law student from Loda, said a petition to move commencement to a better time for the students and their families had no effect on administrators, even though it had 88 signatures from the graduating class. Students were concerned their families may not be able to attend commencement because it would require them to request days off from work.

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‘Generally, everybody was sympathetic to us but not willing to move the commencement ceremony,’ Camp said.

The ceremony was moved because of the plan to relocate commencements traditionally held in SIU Arena. Renovating the Arena is part of the Saluki Way construction project, so administrators decided to have all commencement ceremonies in Shryock Auditorium. Because of scheduling conflicts, the law school graduation was set up for Thursday.

But earlier this semester, Chancellor Sam Goldman ordered some of the commencements be held in the arena, said Jie Tyrrell, admissions and records supervisor.

Tyrrell said the chancellor was concerned some commencements would have to use a ticket system, therefore limiting the number of guests a graduate could have at the ceremony.

Andy Pettit, coordinator at SIU Arena, said most of the upper concourse would be closed to the public because construction crews have begun to cut concrete and remove sections of bleachers from their mounts. The facility would be able to welcome roughly 2,500 guests for commencement, he said.

‘We’re doing the best we can with what we have,’ Pettit said as he pointed out staircases and other seating areas that would be closed off because of ongoing construction.

Pettit said the graduation schedule could have allowed the Arena to host the law school’s commencement on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

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Not rescheduling the law school’s commencement means Michael Oltmann’s sister, a student at Illinois State University, will not be able to attend the ceremony. Oltmann, a third-year law student from New Douglas, said his father, a pipe fitter, is taking off work to be able to attend.

‘It was a terrible situation that was handled even more poorly,’ Oltmann said of the commencement schedule. ‘It felt like there were so many available alternatives, and the fact that they would not consider one of them leaves you feeling like it didn’t really matter what we wanted.’

Goldman declined to comment on this story.

Camp said he expects to feel strange walking on Thursday after all of his effort to reschedule the ceremony. Even though the date did not change, Camp said his work was not done in vain.

‘I think it showed a lot of the higher-ups in the university the dedication of the students,’ he said. ‘When we don’t feel something is going right, we can band together and present a unified front.’

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