TYLER, Texas — In just two days more than 2,800 people signed a petition asking the University of Texas at Tyler not to make big changes to this spring’s commencement ceremony.
The university is planning to shift away from separating commencement into smaller ceremonies at the Cowan Center in favor of a single, outdoor ceremony at the new plaza on campus.
“UT Tyler is pleased to feature, for the first time, an outdoor ceremony for our spring graduates in the beautiful, newly constructed Patriot Plaza,” Lucas Roebuck, vice president for marketing, brand strategy and community engagement, told the Tyler Morning Telegraph in a prepared statement. “UT Tyler joins hundreds of other academic institutions that have outdoor spring ceremonies, including UT Austin, Rice University, University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania and UNC Chapel Hill.”
Read more from CBS19's newspaper partner, the Tyler Morning Telegraph.