Staff Excellence: Purdue University’s commencement team

Thousands of caps and gowns create a sea of gold and black in the Purdue Armory as graduate candidates line up to take their last steps through campus before becoming alumni. College banners wave as Boilermakers enter Elliott Hall of Music, and the room swells with pride as family and friends perch in their seats, ready to watch their graduate cross the stage and hear their name boom over the sound system.

Commencement ceremonies on the West Lafayette campus are a sight to behold — three times each year — largely thanks to the Office of the Registrar staff members who spend countless hours planning and coordinating a unique, personal experience that college graduates deserve. Over the past 10 years, this group has helped plan 99 commencement ceremonies celebrating the giant leaps of nearly 100,000 students. 

“Most universities with our head count just do a stand-up, sit-down ceremony,” says Lesa Beals, senior associate registrar. “An institution of our size personally recognizing every candidate and giving them their moment onstage to hear their name called is pretty unheard of. We do that, and we do it seamlessly without a rehearsal.”

The whole process begins about a year in advance, when the commencement team books its captioning service, teleprompter and sign language interpreters. Then they work to identify members of the clergy, who are responsible for leading the invocation and benediction ahead of each ceremony, and the public orators, who read the names of each graduate as they walk across the stage.

Meanwhile, the group also begins connecting with campus partners to share key details about students’ deadlines to apply to graduate and indicate their participation in upcoming commencement ceremonies. As the final tally of participating students rolls in, Beals’ team drafts a seating chart — an undertaking that requires patience and precision — and publishes it on the commencement website for candidates and their families to view. 

Working closely alongside the campus partners, the commencement team compiles a list of marshals, who lead the graduate candidates into Elliott Hall of Music, and banner bearers, students selected to carry their college’s banner during the procession. Then programs featuring each division’s order of exercises and graduate’s names are created and quickly sent off for printing.

Other preparations include coordinating with staff from the Office of Emergency Preparedness, Purdue University Police Department, Purdue Parking and Physical Facilities to prepare for the thousands of visitors traveling to campus; facilitating a walkthrough to ensure there aren’t any obstacles along the procession route; and offering training sessions to banner bearers, marshals and commencement volunteers. 

Once commencement day arrives, their efforts are put to the test, and they always deliver.

“You have to show up to the event and just make sure everybody follows the leader,” Beals says. “If anything goes sideways, we are the only people who know. The audience members and those on the platform generally don’t know that something did not go the way we wanted it to because we are so skilled at what we do.” 

It’s a process rooted in tradition, but that doesn’t mean the team doesn’t know how to make adjustments every now and then. When construction in the Armory removed a large portion of the commencement check-in space last spring, Beals and her crew came up with a new method: meter the number of students who enter the building, rather than opening the doors for the entire eager crowd. The change proved to be highly successful, and they are now implementing it for all future commencement ceremonies. 

As the team prepares to celebrate more than 1,700 graduates at the university’s Summer 2024 Commencement ceremonies, set for Aug. 3, they’re already looking ahead to winter commencement, which will include the very first Purdue University in Indianapolis graduates.

These staff members are natural problem-solvers whose expertise and level-headedness pave the way for outstanding and unmatched commencement ceremonies year after year, and when smoke arises, they stamp it out before it can grow into a fire. Purdue commencement ceremonies simply wouldn’t be the same without their dedication, attentiveness and prowess in creating memorable experiences for graduates, and being able to have a hand in celebrating Boilermakers’ giant leaps makes every second of the tedious process worthwhile.

“The biggest motivator for our volunteers is knowing that this is the final memory that we are helping make for our Purdue alumni, and they all seriously want it to be the best day that they can contribute to,” Beals says.