Sacramento State officials say that they have no plansto change commencement ceremony policies despite arecent controversy that placed the university in thenational spotlight.

The logistics of hustling thousands of graduatesthrough the event is a daunting task, according toFrank Whitlatch, assistant news director for theuniversity.

“Planning for commencement is an ongoing thing,”Whitlatch said. “They start in October for the springgraduation. A lot of people get involved.”

According to Whitlatch, the university is notconsidering making changes to the venue, how speakersare selected or criteria for public admission tocommencement ceremonies despite the controversy thaterupted during last December?s graduation.

The audience booed Sacramento Bee Publisher JanisHeaphy off the stage in the middle of her December 15address to graduates. Heaphy expressed concernregarding the Bush administration?s use ofsurveillance and military tribunals as tools to fightterrorism.

“No changes are under consideration that I?m awareof,” Whitlatch said, “but commencement is pulledtogether by the individual colleges at the dean level.

“Sometimes they work with the universityadministration to pull together speakers. It?s reallykind of gray when you?re talking about how thecommencement details are planned. Every college doesit differently.”

Students who attended the ceremony have a fewsuggestions.

School of Business alum Corey Haustein was sittingwith his fellow graduates when the audience?s unrestforced Heaphy to stop speaking. He said that studentswere tolerant, but that Heaphy and school officialsdisrespected the students.

“None of us were booing-that was all in the audience,”Haustein said. “But Heaphy went on too much of atangent about Sept. 11. She left the students behind.”

Haustein thinks that speakers should be given a narrowrange of topics and a definite time limit, and thatPresident Donald Gerth should know speech subjectsbeforehand.

“I got the impression that Gerth didn?t know what thespeech was about,” he said.

Freshman Lori Michaels thinks that commencementspeakers have a responsibility to encourage studentsto envision a positive future.

“She was too negative. Nobody wanted to hear aboutthat stuff,” she said.

Janice Hayden, Academic Ceremonies and Special EventsCoordinator said that everything is “up in the air.”

“Nothing?s been decided yet,” she said. “We might haveto come back to campus, but beyond that, there?snothing new.”