UC Santa Barbara makes major changes to graduation ceremonies amidst Palestine and Israel student protests

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Students like Aubrey Garrett have been waiting years to walk the stage for what they call one of their biggest life milestones.  

“I'm excited to graduate. It's been a lot of work these last four years and I didn't really get a high school graduation because of COVID, so I was looking forward to having like a proper ceremony here,” said Microbiology graduate Aubrey Garrett.

But graduation is going to look different this year. 
 
Guests will be required to have tickets to enter the event and each graduate will be limited to six guest tickets— a change that is creating great difficulty for families who have already made flight and hotel accommodations. 
 
“For us, our family, we have seven. So who makes the cut? You know…to go? We're all coming up here to do her graduation and then doing a quick turnaround to go to a wedding. So do we leave one person at the hotel or like, how do we do that? It’s really unfair,” said Susan Garrett, who made the drive from Orange to visit her soon-to-be graduate daughter.
 
“I have eight family members driving up from San Diego and they've already got the hotel and everything. So the changes can't really be made at this point,” said art major Sophie Leishman.

The string of student protests happening across the nation's college campuses have led to the implementation of new security measures, and UC Santa Barbara is no exception.

What was a decades long tradition of the commencement ceremony happening right outside of their lagoon is now being moved over to a different location.
 
“They didn't tell us why they were moving graduation, but I assume it's because of the protesting. But I don't really think that that's going to help or change the situation at all. A lot of the protestors are students themselves, so they're going to be at graduation regardless,” said Aubrey Garrett.
 
The university's statement on the changes reads in part, “Campuses across the country have experienced significant disruptions throughout this year. UC Santa Barbara has been learning from other UC campuses and carefully watching other universities and colleges in order to adopt best practices in event management.” 
 
Commencement ceremonies are scheduled for June 14 through the 16.