In an email sent out to Barnard students, DSpar announced that this year’s commencement, on May 19, will be held at Radio City Music Hall as opposed Columbia’s campus, where it typically happens. The short email explained that there will be a Baccalaureate Service at St. Paul’s Chapel and academic receptions at Barnard. There will be bus service for grads and faculty to Radio City later in the day. Graduates will be able to have up to six guests in this bigger venue.
We are delighted to announce that Barnard’s 2013 Commencement will be held on Sunday, May 19th at 4pm at Radio City Music Hall. Since its opening in 1932, Radio City has been both a national landmark and a New York City treasure and, after a comprehensive search, proved to be the optimal venue for this milestone celebration. It will comfortably accommodate our seniors, six guests per graduate, faculty, staff, and distinguished guests.
Our day of celebration on May 19th will begin with the Baccalaureate Service at 9:30am in St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University, and our academic departmental receptions will follow at 1pm on Barnard’s campus. Bus transportation to Radio City Music Hall will be provided for all graduates and faculty, departing from Barnard at 3pm.
Many more details are forthcoming and will be available at http://www.barnard.edu/commencement in the new year. In consideration of the many families that need to arrange work schedules, airline tickets, hotels and the like, we wanted to share this information with you as soon as possible. Please mark your calendars now. It is certain to be an extraordinary day.
Tags: announcements, barnard commencement, breaking, commencement, commencement 2013, graduation 2013, will this matter when the world ends this week though?
maybe they need to use it because of increased security for whoever is speaking. who knows, it might be someone really important... like the President or something!
I think it is the result of Obamanard. At some point Barnard has to stop using Columbia's facilities for all of their events. Barnard should hold their graduation and festivities on their campus.
maybe if y'all weren't plus sized, you could fit in the quad. Or you could have it on a random corner under a street light as that seems to be where many of you are employed these days.
It might be because of Obamanard, but I'm guessing it's mostly because they didn't have enough space to meet the excessive demand for guests. Somehow I doubt they shelled out tons of money to have graduation somewhere else because they were butthurt after some people were mean on the Internet.
Hey, buddy--that track button is not your friend. And your trolling is really lame and really not cute.
Newsflash. Columbia doesn't want Barnard to stop using its facilities because Barnard shells out a ton of cash every year for exactly this purpose. Columbia benefits from Barnard's use of its facilities.
Newsflash... we are Columbia as we are the ones who pay tuition (A higher amount than you Barnard cows, yet you somehow get to take our classes) at Columbia. We don't want you.
Hey I'd be bitter too if I had low enough self esteem to take more dicks than a 1937 resident of Nanking.
A little disappointed that this isn't on or closer to campus :( I wanted a ceremony in a place I felt a connection to, and I have no connection to this venue. Many mixed feelings...
Columbia did at some point own the land Rockefeller Center/Radio City Music Hall was built on. But that's a stupid connection.
Yeah, why not Lincoln Center? At least it is on the west side, much closer, has parking, bigger venue.
It costs $75,000 to rent out Radio City for a day (compared to very little at Grant's Tomb, and presumably nothing at Columbia). barnard is sending a mixed message about its finances that is tasteless, and offensive to all the kids who have suffered—forced to pay for a meal plan, forced to more expensive off-campus housing despite contracts, entrapped into going full-time as a last-semester senior—because of Barnard's belt-tightening.
Not true. Barnard pays Columbia a significant amount to use South Lawn. In fact CU wants BC to use their facilities so they can charge BC for all the equipment that was already set up for all the other class days.
Well then perhaps a good investment (and less superfluous one than rebuilding the library) would be to find a way to start holding graduations on our campus.
there is no space to hold commencement on campus now that the diana is there and it takes up more space. it used to be held on campus. if it were held on barnard's lawn, there would be an even bigger uproar because students would only get like 2 or 3 tickets, rather than 6.
Where does it say anything about having up to six guests, Bwog? The six-guest limit was a rule for Obamanard, but in past years students could request however many tickets they wanted. Now I'm confused. Also, LTP Barnard friends, please just request the max amount and give them to me, because 6 tickets doesn't even cover my IMMEDIATE family. damn.
"It will comfortably accommodate our seniors, six guests per graduate, faculty, staff, and distinguished guests."
Last year, with Barnard's commencement taking place on South lawn and when Jill Abramson was the expected speaker, Barnard students were told that there would be no guest limit. Unless Barnard is planning to have a high profile speaker on par with the POTUS every year, or unless they received some massive discout, this is a supreme waste of money.
They could have a lead on who will speak this year, and it could be someone that would warrant the venue change.
I also wonder if there has been some sort of administrative battle between the college for use and payment for South Lawn.
In any case, it seems silly to state that the change of venue is to accommodate the size of the event, when before the Obama announcement there wasn't even a guest limit.
@anonymous: lol you all hate when columbia students are condescending towards barnard, but then you are condescending towards community colleges etc. WAHHHH