In early February, a mass email was sent out to all graduate students regarding undergraduate commencement students of all departments.

As eager students opened the e-mail and began to read the content, many were taken back and enraged as they read the following line:

“To ensure there is a seat for all commencement participants and their families attending the Saturday 10 a.m. undergraduate ceremony at the Hayward Campus, five tickets and two parking permits will be issued to each degree recipient.”

Yes, you read that correctly. Five tickets.

I am the first person in my family to graduate from college, which is a huge accomplishment that I have been working towards for years.

Each member of my family ranging from parents to cousins, grandparents and my close friends were eager to attend the ceremonies. I had family members planning trips and organizing plane flights in order to see me walk across the stage and receive my diploma.

Now, along with other undergraduates, I have to break the news to my family and friends that have been supporting me along the way and let them know they are not allowed to attend my graduation.

There is no room for them and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

“That’s sad for people with big families,” says Yama Nekrawesh, 26, a business major at CSUEB. “I have people coming from Virginia and Canada and now they can’t watch me [graduate].”

Ronn Patton, manager of university events, explained in the graduation workshop on February 12 that ceremonies would be held differently in order to give graduate students a more traditional hooding ceremony.

In addition, CSUEB administration needed to find a way to monitor parking and obey fire marshal code. The conclusion was to limit the number of tickets and create a four-hour ceremony packed with each of the four colleges at CSUEB.

“ It’s going to be a hot day,” said Nekrawesh in regards to the ceremony taking four hours. “It’s in the middle of June. Split it up so it’s two to three hours on Saturday and Sunday. We don’t want heat stroke and things like that.”

At the graduation workshop, students quickly filled the room to ask questions about the graduation ceremonies. When Patton came to speak about the ceremony, students’ hands shot up in regards to the limited seating, which made me breathe a sigh of relief because I wasn’t alone in my anger.

Patton, who was quickly under attack from a variety of students, took the heat for a decision that he said was made by administration.

A young woman, who will be among the undergraduates at CSUEB this year, stood up and proclaimed “the e-mail sent out to the undergraduates stated that you guys are going to be giving us 5 tickets and two parking tickets. What about the undergraduates that have the large families and distant relatives and friends coming? Do you want us to turn them away and say I’m sorry, you can’t come to our graduation because we only have 5 tickets and 2 parking tickets?”

The graduating student, who was interrupted by the applause of her peers, not only expressed her feelings but the feelings of the other undergraduate students in attendance.

“We are entitled to walk across that stage with everyone cheering us on,” says the student. “I mean come on. We can’t be entitled to just 5 tickets and 2 parking permits.

Patton kept his composure and replied, “First I want to state, I have nothing to do with this. I’m an alumni, I did my degrees here. We have had tickets in the past. This isn’t something that has not been done before.”

In fact, Patton explained that his friends and family were required to have tickets when he graduated from the university. In addition, a variety of other schools in California have limited seating as well.

UC Davis and CSU Bakersfield each have limitations on their graduation ceremonies as well. UC Davis only allows five tickets per graduate and CSU Bakersfield gives students six. San Jose State also requires tickets but they are only available with a $30 fee for adults and $10 fee for children.

But, other schools such as CSU Sacramento, CSU Channel Islands, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Long Beach all have open graduations that don’t require any ticket to attend. CSU Dominguez Hills splits graduation into five ceremonies over two days and CSU Sacramento will have seven separate ceremonies over two days.

So, why can’t CSUEB do the same? They did it last year, didn’t they?

“What they should do is stick with the original plan like last year,” says Nekrawesh. “I don’t understand why they changed it. Last year was completely legitimate.”

For the 2012 commencement ceremonies, the College of Science had an undergraduate and graduate ceremony on Friday, June 15.

On Saturday, June 16, the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences took place at 10:00 a.m. and the College of Business and Economics preceded at 4:00 p.m.

Lastly, the College of Education & Allied Studies took place at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 17th.

Now, what was wrong with that?

We undergraduates who worked hard for our degree, dedicated countless hours to homework, commuted miles to attend classes and had many late nights studying for exams and writing papers. We should be entitled to more than five tickets. There are plenty of other ways we can go about graduation.

“It’s unfair that we don’t have a say on how many tickets we get,” says Eduardo Vazquez, 21, a business and criminal justice double major at CSUEB. “Instead of having one ceremony, we should have two ceremonies on Saturday [June 15] and Sunday [June 16] so less schools will be at the ceremony and more families can attend.”

It is that simple, just add one or two more ceremonies. On Sunday, June 16, no ceremonies are taking place at the Hayward campus. Why can’t we move two of the undergraduate colleges to Sunday so it isn’t as crowded and more tickets can be available? It seems like a simple solution.

I’m sure CSUEB has a strict budget for graduation but if we are going to have an ultimatum of tickets, we should at least get the option to purchase more. That way, CSUEB won’t be the only one paying the price and we can afford to have more than just one undergraduate ceremony.

There shouldn’t be such a binding limit on an amazing accomplishment.

For those who are still angered by the situation, you can contact Ronn Patton for more information. All e-mails, messages and phone calls he receives will be directly forwarded to administration.