The first NC State College of Management graduation where staff member Terry Price helped at the ceremony — on December 15, 1999 — was a commencement for her, too: it was her first day on the job.
Since then, Price has seen many seas of caps and gowns at 46 graduations in her nearly 25 years at Poole, where she’s now student records and academic programs coordinator in the Office of Undergraduate Programs.
That first commencement, when Price passed out scrolls on stage, is “kind of a blur” now, she says. “I wasn’t nervous. A few people thought that was a challenging thing to ask me to do on my first day, but I said, ‘That’s fine. I’ll go out there and do it.’”
At Poole’s undergraduate commencement this Saturday, May 4, at Reynolds Coliseum, she’ll go out there and do it again — as she does twice a year, at ceremonies in May and December. “The years went by so fast,” Price says.
She started working for NC State’s College of Management before it was called Poole College. Others have been at Poole as long as, or longer, than she has: Frank Buckless, now dean, and faculty members Bruce Branson, Steve Barr and Kathy Krawczyk among them, she notes.
Besides the college’s naming, Price cites other changes in commencements over the years.
When she started in her position, undergraduates submitted handwritten blue cards as applications for graduation for her to review. Those applications now are digital. Price makes sure students meet degree requirements to graduate and that their names are consistent with Poole’s and the university’s records.
It’s a lot of names.
About 900 Poole undergraduates finish in spring and summer, and 300-400 in December.
The commencement location has changed several times, too, before returning to Reynolds Coliseum. When the event was held at the former RBC Center, Price and the staff on Poole’s advising team loaded their own cars to take graduation materials to the arena. Now they use a van.
“It’s come full circle,” Price says.
In the early years, Poole’s undergraduate and graduate ceremonies were on the same day in both the spring and in December. With the growth in the graduate program, that commencement is held separately each spring.
Student marshals at graduation mostly have been replaced by staff volunteers.
For two years, the COVID pandemic forced Poole and NC State officials, and campuses around the country, to hold virtual graduations. “That was a little tough,” Price says, “especially trying to do a visual of names on the screen” to be featured in the digital event.
Despite the hands-on intensity of commencement preparations and ceremonies for Price, the events don’t stress her. “It’s not overwhelming for me because I’m busy working,” she says.
Her advice for the students who cross the stage? “Take full advantage of all the opportunities you have now,” she says, “and don’t put anything off.”
This post was originally published in Poole College of Management News.
- Categories:
