Delta College is offering graduates an in-person commencement ceremony on June 5 after its 86th annual ceremony, held virtually, was marred by technical difficulties.
The ceremony was scheduled for 10 a.m. on May 15, and started approximately 20 minutes later than the scheduled time.
The late start time wasn’t the end of student, family and faculty member’s confusion and disappointment, however.
About midway through the announcement of graduates’ names, technical difficulties caused some students’ names to be announced repeatedly over other graduates’ slides, lasting about 20 minutes.
Delta Superintendent/President Dr. Omid Pourzanjani commented on the ordeal on Delta’s Facebook page.
“Dear graduates, our sincere apologies for the technical issues. We are trying to have Full Measure correct the issue or stop the broadcast. You deserve the best and this isn’t it,” Pourzanjani wrote.
Eventually Full Measure Education, the host of the event, announced the stream would be stopped.
“We apologize for the errors in the Presentation of Graduates. We will be working to fix the errors ASAP. We will be ending the livestream now,” Full Measure Education wrote.
Delta paid $13,625 for a contract with Full Measure Education to host it, according to board of trustees documents.
One of the students whose name was repeated showed good humor in the comments of the YouTube live stream.
“Wow. I received so many degrees,” the student wrote.
One viewer commented, “Our students deserve better and our community deserves the professionalism and care after families sacrifice years, hard work and tuition to come to Delta College. You all should be completely disappointed in this lack of oversight to have the same two names repeated throughout the commencement is just completely incompetent. I hope you fix this commencement and make it right for students, their families, and the community.”
Following the end of the live stream, Delta sent out an apology and an offer of an in-person ceremony to be held on June 5. More information about the ceremony will come in the future.
Director of Marketing, Communications and Outreach Alex Brietler said that today was not the graduation that Delta’s students deserve.
He said that Delta wants to host a ceremony that is worthy of students’ amazing achievements.
“We certainly want to apologize to graduates, their families and loved ones for what happened,” Breitler said.