Graduation, Commencement, & Academic Events

Determining that students have met the requirements for degrees or certificates at their institution, and facilitating the awarding of degrees or certificates through the creation and distribution of diplomas and graduation or commencement programs.

Content knowledge requirements: Knowledge of institutional requirements for degrees or certificates. Understanding of degree audits or other programs used to verify completion. Knowledge of institution event processes and capabilities.

Skill requirements: Ability to analyze and manage academic program requirements and develop processes to award degrees and certificates. Ability to manage large workloads leading up to graduation deadlines. Good event management skills. Highly organized.

Ethical requirements: Conduct aligned with the established AACRAO principles of professional ethics and practice in academic and enrollment services. Ensure that campus codes of conduct and ethics are followed.

Expertise Levels

Entry level: Functional understanding of institutional requirements for degree or certificate completion. Ability to utilize degree audit system or other institutional process to determine that students have fulfilled requirements. Experience with commencement ceremonies.

Intermediate level: Understand and manage a key component of institutional graduation such as oversight of the degree audit, management of the commencement ceremony, or production of student diplomas. Work collaboratively across departments/schools or colleges to plan and implement graduation processes and events. Contribute to development of improvement in business processes to help facilitate student graduation and commencement.

Expert level: Identify and implement business processes to efficiently evaluate student degree and certificate completion and award degrees and certificates. Create, organize, and lead the institutions commencement service. Lead multi-departmental teams to implement graduation events. Develop processes and procedures for selecting commencement speakers, designing commencement programs, distributing academic honors and honorary degrees, diploma distribution, and other critical components of the graduation and commencement process.