UC Santa Barbara Quietly Cancels New Student Convocation

UC Santa Barbara’s New Student Convocation, which was scheduled for Monday, September 23, has been quietly canceled by the university. Two weeks after the cancellation, the university has finally responded to the Independent’s request for comment, stating a desire to focus on “interactive events” in lieu of a “more formal session with speeches.”

New Student Convocation is the annual induction ceremony for incoming first-years and transfer students. Last year’s convocation took place on Commencement Green and included remarks from Chancellor Henry Yang and a keynote speaker. This year’s convocation was initially planned for late September, but some observant internet sleuths noticed that webpages for the event, which were live back in May, have been down since then. The Instagram page UCIntelNetwork and users on the UC Santa Barbara subreddit have been posting updates about the situation and revealing defunct links. For example, the link to the main New Student Convocation webpage, ucsb.edu/convocation, now automatically redirects to the UCSB Orientation Programs and Parent Services webpage, which makes no mention of the convocation. And the New Student Convocation webpage on the UCSB Housing website is unavailable. 

While a brief email was sent out at the end of August to notify staff that the convocation would not be held this year, no official public announcement was provided by the university at the time. The Office of Public Affairs & Communications at UCSB declined to answer specific questions about the cancellation, namely the reason and why no notice has been sent out to students. Instead, UCSB Media Relations Manager Kiki Reyes wrote in an email to the Independent: “We are excited to welcome our new students to campus. The university always provides a wide range of activities for our students to learn about and help them settle into our academic community.”

She continued, “We are continuously evaluating what works well and making refinements using student feedback to guide our efforts. This year we are focusing on interactive events where students can make new connections and directly experience all the programs and services our campus has to offer rather than asking students to attend a more formal session with speeches.

“We look forward to enjoying other welcoming and community-building traditions with our campus community this fall.”

This move by the university is reminiscent of the recent last-minute decision to relocate UCSB commencement ceremonies from Commencement Green to the Recreation Center Fields. A new ticketing procedure was also implemented, which limited admission to six ticketed guests per student. Commencement ceremonies were ultimately relocated to Commencement Green and the number of allowed guests doubled to 12 following massive backlash. 

An explanation for this proposed sudden change was only vaguely given in the second email from the university that reversed the original decision. 

“The initial change in venue was undertaken in order to help ensure the continuity of our ceremonies and to enhance safety procedures,” the email read. 

This hazy statement likely refers to the multiple large protests that disrupted the end of spring quarter, including the establishment of the UCSB Liberated Zone, the takeover of Girvetz Hall, and the UAW 4811 academic workers’ strike over the UC’s response to protests over the war in Gaza. The Instagram page UCIntelNetwork speculated that the cancellation of the convocation might similarly be a proactive move to thwart potential pro-Palestinian demonstrators who may have been planning to disrupt the event.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of ticketed guests originally allowed per student under UCSB’s new ticketing procedure for commencement. UCSB initially said it would allow students to have only six ticketed guests before increasing that number to 12.