Reif: Liberate the regalia

Jordan Reif Staff Writer

Graduation is one month away. While that fills some people with excitement and others with dread, for everyone, it means preparation. Families and friends are making arrangements to attend graduation ceremonies, while students are completing interviews to nail down jobs and higher education. Two weeks ago, all graduates—Bachelor, Master or Doctorate degree—were invited to attend the Grad Fair. Case Western Reserve University advertised it as the “official ‘one stop shop’” for all graduation information, services and products. I’ll admit, I enjoyed the free CWRU thermos as much as the next person, but I quickly felt frustration over being required to purchase our single-use cap and gown if we wanted to walk in graduation.

Oak Hall Cap & Gown provides all CWRU regalia for graduating students. At the CWRU Barnes & Noble bookstore, Oak Hall charged undergraduate students $60.98 for their cap and gown and an additional $12.98 for the tassel for a total of $73.96. Oak Hall charged Master’s students (including people in the Integrated Graduate Studies program) $64.98 for their cap, gown and tassel, and an additional $41.50 for their hood, coming to a total of $106.48. Neither of these totals include the extra $7-10 for tax.

To put into perspective, this regalia requires seven-eight hours of working for students with on-campus minimum wage jobs. One or two shifts of wages are entirely wiped out to cover the cost of regalia required for all students who want to walk in graduation.

For my purpose, I will focus on Bachelor and Master graduates. While the cost of Doctoral regalia is also outrageous— totaling near $1,000—there is a reduced rental option; these gowns, hoods and tams are often worn yearly in future academic positions.

Meanwhile, students never wear their Bachelor and Master gowns again. Well, outside that homemade ceremony you have for your great aunt who couldn’t attend. We are paying eight hours of work for a single-use product. There seems to be a simple alternative.

At comparable universities, regalia is sold for around $60 for Bachelor gowns and $100 for Master’s. This begs the question, why is there no rental option for all regalia? Or, better yet, a single-day use program?

A rental service would help reduce the cost by at least 60% to make the regalia more affordable while still offering a purchase option for those who want a gown for memory; students could still purchase caps if they want to decorate the mortarboard. CWRU or Oak Hall could provide this service.

Alternatively, CWRU could purchase approximately 2,000 gowns for graduating students. Following commencement rehearsal (the day prior to commencement), students would be directed to different areas based on their college and last name to pick up a cap, gown and tassel. Each gown, cap and tassel would have an assigned number, recorded with the student’s name and Case ID. Students could have the option to return the gown following the ceremony or in a few days afterwards. If students fail to return their regalia, they could be charged the cost of the item(s).

These alternatives save students money and would be much more sustainable. The CWRU Commencement site proudly states that the Oak Hall regalia are “made using innovative GreenWeaver fabric made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. This eco-friendly choice reinforces the university’s commitment to sustainability.” Recycling does not excuse people and corporations from trying to reduce unnecessary consumption and waste in the first place. Forcing all students to purchase regalia that will never be worn again is inherently wasteful, especially when there are feasible alternatives.

One aspect of class registration that is most definitely a problem is the registration website itself. Having hundreds or even thousands of students log on to SIS at the same time early in the morning is an ineffective method of enrollment. Every time, without fail, the website freezes due to the enormous amount of traffic in such a short period. Some students then have to wait only to find out that they couldn’t get into their required classes, while others are simply lucky enough to have clicked the enroll button at the right moment. This will only become more of a problem as we increase our enrollment here.

The fact that a top research university is unable to find a way to make this process more streamlined and less prone to technical failures is a glaring show of the administration’s lack of planning.

One final area that shows the university administration’s ineffectiveness is its COVID-19 policies.

For most of the pandemic, CWRU has surprisingly done a decent job of enforcing regulations and ensuring that the campus community is vaccinated. Official university data show that about 96% of the entire community—students, faculty and staff—are fully vaccinated. These high rates are something to celebrate, especially when the rest of Cuyahoga County is only 65% vaccinated, and Ohio sits at an abysmally low rate of 58%.

Despite these accomplishments in curbing the pandemic, CWRU has still found a way to make mistakes. The decision on March 16 to drop the mask mandate in most places on campus in conjunction with making testing optional for most students has led to issues that we now are facing.

As we’ve seen over the past week, the positivity rate on campus has been steadily increasing and is now at 8.6%—a total of 187 cases. This is worsened by the fact that isolation housing is now full, forcing the university to have students self-isolate in their rooms.

The decision to loosen mask restrictions by itself was not dangerous, but loosening testing policies as well has hampered the university’s ability to track where COVID is spreading, hampering prevention efforts. In the end, the students suffer from the university’s poor planning and organization.

As I mentioned already, CWRU is undoubtedly a good school. It has wonderful educational opportunities led by professors committed to their fields of study. The university offers many exciting and transformative opportunities and many great organizations to join, such as The Observer.

However, the administration should not get stuck in this trap of excellence—we must not have the mindset that an institution such as CWRU can do no wrong because it’s simply too good. Even top universities fall short, and CWRU is no exception.

The university prides itself on its motto: “Think beyond the possible.” For the sake of both the administration and the students, we need to think within the reasonable.

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