As she neared the end of her Ph.D. studies, Seval Dulgeroglu planned to participate in this year’s commencement and leave RPI following her thesis defense in the fall of 2003. All her plans changed with the announcement of the new commencement policy in the final days of the Fall 2002 semester.
Dulgeroglu now finds herself in a difficult situation. “It’s impossible for me to come back to Troy just for the ceremony in 2003 because of [my] visa, time, and financial issues,” said Dulgeroglu.
After talking to other concerned students, Dulgeroglu decided to start a petition against the new policy and came up with the following ways to improve the new commencement policy:
• Organize one more ceremony a year either in November or January. An additional ceremony will provide more participation compared to December ceremonies, which have been tried in the previous years with poor student participation due to holidays.
• Grant walking rights on a case-by-case basis to those students that might not be able to return to Troy for the ceremony
• Let students that would finish in the same academic year participate in that year’s ceremony. Obtain letters from students’ thesis committees to determine eligibility.
Currently Dulgeroglu has 60 signatures and hopes to get 10 to 20 more before submitting it to the provost’s office.
After speaking to friends, Dulgeroglu found that they empathized with her story. “I decided to write a petition to make our voices heard [by] the administration, and also to talk to several administrative people along the way to see if they’d consider changing the policy,” said Dulgeroglu.
Further, she hopes to raise awareness. “I also wanted to see how [administration] would react to the petition,” said Dulgeroglu.
According to Dulgeroglu, Tom Apple, dean of graduate education, Gary Gabriele, vice provost, and Bud Peterson, provost, have all told her “to go ahead with it.”
After speaking with Dulgeroglu, Gabriele said he understood her concerns and felt that she had a valid reason for starting the petition.
Gabriele currently evaluates the undergraduate petitions that the registrar rejects or is unsure of how to handle. He also made it clear that he reviews “each petition on a case by case basis [and we] have tried to be as fair as we can without getting into trouble.”
Gabriele also said that “most of the students fell within [the parameters] of the policy … according to the transition policy, which allows for students who are within one semester” of graduating to walk.
Dulgeroglu also said that after speaking with Peterson it was clear that if students could come up with alternatives to the policy that administration might consider revising it.
Apple is responsible for evaluating the graduate student petitions but Gabriel says he believes that Apple hasn’t received many petitions from graduate students.
“I’m hoping that they will choose a direction that would accommodate all of the students so that none of us would leave RPI with bad memories. I think that it is crucial for RPI to consider the student experience at RPI when it comes to alumni support,” concluded Dulgeroglu.
