The USC campus will require metal detectors for access for commencement, President Carol Folt and Provost Andrew Guzman announced in the Academic Senate meeting Wednesday.
“Getting those metal detectors up fast is really important to me,” Folt said while addressing faculty gathered for the webinar-style session.
Also needed to enter commencement, according to Folt, will be a USC student ID. She added it’s the first time the school has ever required tickets for commencement. Earlier Wednesday fences were erected all over campus to control traffic flow ahead of the May 8-11 events.
The goal of these security measures is to “prevent any explosive events like last night,” Folt said, in reference to the violent events that occurred Tuesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, when pro-Israel protestors allegedly threw fireworks, pepper spray and tear gas inside the pro-Palestinian encampment.
“We’re not a fortress,” Folt said in response to why commencement security measures this year are additional and unexpected. “We couldn’t just move it to the Coliseum. It wasn’t available.”
The 2024 main stage commencement was canceled following controversy surrounding the decision to not allow the valedictorian to speak. The university cited security concerns as a reason to both cancel the commencement and rescind the valedictorian’s speech.
“We’re ticketing the commencement, we’re limiting access to USC people, plus guests, obviously, in an effort to make those activities work or run more smoothly,” Guzman said. This year’s commencement is limited to 8 ticketed guests per graduate and is projected to draw more than 65,000 guests.
Guzman added that he is meeting with deans of all schools multiple times each week to discuss “planning strategies to respond if there are disruptions,” and praised the commencement planning team which have been “pivoting at lightning speed.”
Another hurdle of hosting commencement, every year and especially in introducing new security measures, is compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
“Close to 20% of the people that come, that’s well over 10,000, are ADA. They’re elderly people,” Folt told the Senate. In the case of an emergency, ADA compliance and general crowd control is a major concern for the security team. “It is a nightmare to control a large crowd if even one thing goes wrong.”
While the Divest from Death encampments continue, the USC community remains unclear on whether protests will last through the commencement ceremonies. Guzman noted that “you don’t have the right to protest to the point where it’s impossible to continue with the [commencement] ceremony. We hope people will respect the desire on the part of graduates and families who may have traveled a great distance, to see those events and to have a day of celebration for their students.”
He continued that the priority is to get students through finals and to graduation.
“The thing where I think we all agree is we want to get our students through the final exam period in a way that allows them to be successful,” Guzman said. “And then have the kind of commencement that celebrates our graduates in the right way.”
The multiple ceremonies will be held May 8-11 at various locations according to school or student group.
Folt expressed her disappointment in the structure of commencement this year, and her desire to have the 48 separate ceremonies run smoothly.
“I’m pretty optimistic about our commencement events,” she said.