#graduates   #celebrate   #family   #friends   

To whom it may concern:

 

​As the December 2022 graduating class of the Indiana University School of Nursing at IUPUI, we look forward with enthusiasm to our upcoming pinning ceremony. This is a moment we have all looked forward to – some of us for years, and some of us for a mere sixteen months.  Some of us have raised families with multiple children while completing our degrees. Some of us have quit careers during the pandemic to rush to the aid of our fellow nurses during one of the biggest healthcare crises known to this country. Some of us, having freshly completed one undergraduate degree, jumped right back into school at great personal cost to serve one common goal: to save and better the lives of our fellow humans. Regardless of our individual backstories, we would like to humbly submit our request for a change of venue for our pinning ceremony.

​On Thursday, September 6th, the graduating class of December 2022 received communication that the ceremony is to take place in a fourth-floor room of the IUPUI student center and that each student is limited to four guests. While we recognize that perhaps there are budgetary and logistical factors that have played into this decision, we would like to offer to team up with the nursing school to come up with an alternative solution. Some of our graduating class have immediate family members (spouses and children) that exceed the allotment of four guests. This is not to mention the fact that we have worked so incredibly hard and are not going to be walking at graduation until May 2023. We believe that these two facts warrant a need for a larger venue with space to house at least five guests per person, with seating left over in case some of us require it.

​We would therefore like to offer a proposal we have come up with but are also open to other ideas should there be a better or more feasible solution. We are aware that IUPUI hosts men and women’s basketball at the Indiana Farmer’s Coliseum on the Indiana State Fair Grounds. No basketball games will be taking place the day of December 16, 2022, nor are there any Indy Fuel games scheduled for that time. If we were able to house our pinning ceremony there, we would be willing to contribute an individual payment in order to make that happen.

​We realize this is a big request, but we feel we deserve to celebrate with as many guests as we would like to invite, in a setting that feels a little more formal than the Student Center. Thank you for your consideration, as well as your efforts up to today in organizing this momentous occasion.

 

​Sincerely,

ABSN December 2022 graduates