With commencement just over two months away, the Follet bookstore will host a graduation fair where students can pre-order their cap and gown.
“They have until March 24 to preorder,” said Carmen Rodriguez, store manager for the Follett bookstore on the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Edinburg campus. “If you don’t pre-order, then you can come into the bookstore. We’ll have extras here in the bookstore, but it’s going to be generic. The pre-ordering is for the purpose of getting your size and getting it fitted.”
The graduation fair will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 21 and 22 in Edinburg and March 23-24 in the Brownsville bookstore.
“The faculty regalia is also being preordered,” Rodriguez said. “For a rental, it’s $60, more or less, but it depends what university they graduated [from] and if it’s a [master’s] or Ph.D.”
Those who pre-order will receive an email two weeks before graduation notifying them their package has arrived at the bookstore, Rodriguez said.
UTRGV’s second commencement will consist of four ceremonies, the first on May 13 in Brownsville and three the following day in the McAllen Convention Center, officials say.
The Brownsville ceremony, which will take place at 6 p.m. on the Student Union lawn, includes all colleges.
At 9 a.m. May 14, graduates from the College of Business and Entrepreneurship, the College of Sciences, the College of Education and P-16 Integration will receive their diploma in the McAllen Convention Center, followed by the College of Liberal Arts and the College Engineering and Computer Science at 1p.m., and the the College of Fine Arts and the College of Health Affairs at 5 p.m., according to an email sent to The Riderby Kristin Croyle, UTRGV vice president for Student Success.
Students graduating in McAllen will receive five tickets each for guests due to limited seating at the venue, Croyle wrote. There will be an overflow seating area for guests without tickets. Tickets will not be needed for the Brownsville ceremony.
Students will be invited to the commencement location based on where they have taken the majority of their courses.
For those students who are within six hours of completing their degree and “after summer enrollment begins, enroll in their remaining courses” are welcome to participate in the May or December ceremonies because there will be no summer ceremony, according to Croyle’s email.
On Feb. 5, the Office of the Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration sent an email asking the campus community to fill out a survey, which would help in the design development of the UTRGV official ring.
“The group that is working on it, including art students and faculty, they got the student feedback about what symbols are important to them,” Croyle said. “Based on that feedback they are going to design the ring that is the reflection of UTRGV. It takes some time to do that design.”
The UTRGV Official Ring Committee received over 800 responses to the survey, which ended Feb. 19, said Letty Benavides, assistant vice president for Campus Auxiliary Services and chair of the committee. More than 70 percent of the respondents were students.
“We have to let the students, you know, go through design process, however long that might take,” Benavides said. “The committee wants a design that is going to stand the test of time, that we’re not going to have to go back and modify.”
Students who plan to graduate in Fall 2016 must submit their application by May 1.
