Graduation Clearance

The graduation clearance process involves reviewing student applications for degree conferral, verifying that degree requirements are met, and formally confirming graduates. This section covers all graduation-related tools available to the registrar.

Graduation Workflow

The graduation process follows this workflow:

Student Applies for Graduation
        |
        v
Application Created (Status: APPLIED)
        |
        v
Registrar / Advisor Reviews
        |
   +---------+---------+
   |                   |
   v                   v
APPROVED            DENIED (with reason)
   |
   v
Batch Confirm (Status: CONFIRMED)
   |
   v
Graduation Record Created

Graduation Applications

Viewing Applications

The Graduation Applications list shows all submitted applications with:

Column	Description
Student Name	The applicant's name
Student Number	The applicant's institutional ID
Degree	The degree code and name being applied for
Graduation Date	The target graduation date the student selected
Status	Applied, Under Review, Approved, Denied, Confirmed, or Revoked
Applied Date	When the application was submitted
Plan Complete	A green check if the student's degree plan was complete at the time of application, a red X if incomplete

Filtering Applications

• Status -- Filter by application status (Applied, Under Review, Approved, Denied, Confirmed, Revoked).
• Graduation Date -- Filter by a specific graduation date period.
• Click the filter clear button to reset all filters.

Creating an Application

While students typically submit their own graduation applications, a registrar can also create one:

1. Click New Application at the top of the page.
2. Student -- Search for and select the student.
3. Major / Degree -- Select from the student's active majors. Only majors with an associated degree and an active or in-progress status are shown.
4. Graduation Date -- Optionally select a graduation date period.
5. Status -- Choose either "Applied" (default) or "Approved" (to skip the review step).
6. Notes -- Add optional notes.
7. Click Create.

Reviewing an Application

Applications with status "Applied" or "Under Review" can be reviewed:

To approve:

1. Click the green checkmark icon in the Actions column, or open the application detail and click Approve.
2. Confirm the approval in the dialog that shows the student name and degree.

To deny:

1. Click the red X icon in the Actions column, or open the application detail and click Deny.
2. Enter a denial reason (required).
3. Confirm the denial.

Application Detail

Click any row in the applications list to navigate to the detail page, which shows:

• Student information -- Name, student number (clickable link to the student record).
• Degree information -- Degree code and name.
• Graduation details -- Target graduation date, expected graduation term, applied date.
• Plan completion status -- Whether the degree plan was complete at the time of application.
• Review information -- Who reviewed the application, when, and the denial reason if applicable.
• Status history -- A timeline showing every status change with timestamps, who made the change, and any reasons provided.

Graduation Dates

Graduation dates define the periods for which students can apply to graduate. You must configure graduation dates before students can submit applications.

Viewing Graduation Dates

The Graduation Dates page lists all configured dates with:

Column	Description
Date Name	A descriptive name (e.g., "Spring 2026 Commencement")
Graduation Date	The actual graduation ceremony date
Application Deadline	The last date students can apply for this graduation
Term	The associated academic term (optional)
Active	Whether this date is currently accepting applications
Applications	Count of applications associated with this date

Filter by Active/Inactive status using the dropdown filter.

Creating a Graduation Date

1. Click Add Graduation Date.
2. Fill in the required fields:
   • Date Name -- A descriptive name (e.g., "Spring 2026 Commencement").
   • Graduation Date -- The ceremony date.
   • Application Deadline -- The cutoff date for applications.
3. Optionally set:
   • Term -- Link to an academic term.
   • Notes -- Any additional information.
   • Active -- Whether the date is active (checked by default).
4. Click Create.

Editing a Graduation Date

Click the pencil icon on any row to edit its details. All fields can be modified.

Deleting a Graduation Date

Click the trash icon on any row. If the graduation date has associated applications, a warning is displayed showing the count. Confirm the deletion to proceed.

Batch Confirm Graduations

The Batch Confirm tool allows you to confirm all approved applications for a specific graduation date at once, creating graduation records for each student.

Steps

1. Select a graduation date from the dropdown. The system shows the count of approved applications for that date.
2. Review the applications table. For each approved application, you can set:
   • Graduation Type -- Select from configured graduation types (e.g., Regular, Honors).
   • Title -- Enter a plain text title for the diploma.
   • Title (Formatted) -- Enter a rich text title with bold/italic formatting.
   • Honors -- Select the Latin honor, if applicable.
   • Other honors -- Select any number of additional honors (language, music, leadership, ...).
3. Click Confirm All to process all applications.
4. In the confirmation dialog, verify the count and click Confirm All.

After confirmation:

• Each application's status changes to "Confirmed".
• A graduation record is created for each student.
• The success message shows how many graduates were confirmed.

WARNING

Batch confirmation creates graduation records for all approved applications. This action cannot be easily undone.

Graduation Records

The Graduation Records page is the permanent record of all degrees conferred.

Viewing Records

The list shows:

Column	Description
Student Name	The graduate's name
Student Number	The graduate's institutional ID
Degree	Degree code and name
Major	The major the degree was conferred in. Blank when it could not be resolved (see below)
Graduation Date	The date the degree was conferred
Type	The graduation type (if set)
Title	The diploma title (if set)
Honors	The Latin honor (cum laude, magna, summa), if any. Imported from Colleague
Other honors	Additional honors conferred by the registrar, if any
Confirmed Date	For an imported record, the date Colleague conferred the degree; blank if Colleague has not conferred it yet. For a record confirmed in the SIS, when it was confirmed

Use the search bar to find records by student name or number, and the honors filter to list the records that carry a particular other honor. The CSV export, the student record and the transcript show both kinds of honor.

Two kinds of honor

A graduation record holds one Latin honor, which the nightly Colleague import owns, and any number of other honors -- language, music, leadership -- which Colleague never carried and which are entered here by hand (migration 283). The import never reads or writes the other honors. Their list is the GRADUATION_HONOR lookup, edited in Admin > Lookups; none are seeded.

One record per Colleague credential

Each graduation record imported from Colleague corresponds to one Colleague credential (an ACAD_CREDENTIALS record), not to one degree (migration 301). That matters for a double major: Colleague records a BA in English and a BA in History at the same commencement as two credentials, often with different conferral dates, so the student has two graduation records of the same degree and date, one per major. Tell them apart by the Major column. Before migration 301 the two shared one record, and the nightly import rewrote it from each credential in turn, so about 50 graduates switched between their two majors on every run.

What the import does with each credential:

• Confirmed Date is Colleague's degree date (ACAD_DEGREE_DATE), the date the degree was conferred. A credential without one has not been conferred, and its record shows no Confirmed Date. The import no longer falls back to the date the credential was created, which is usually months before commencement.
• A confirmation made in the SIS is never overwritten. If you confirmed the record here (by Batch Confirm or New Record), it keeps the date you confirmed it, whatever Colleague later records.
• The record follows its credential. If Colleague moves a credential to another degree or ceremony, the record is updated in place rather than duplicated.
• The major comes from the credential. For a BSN or BSW credential that names no major, the import uses Nursing or Social Work. Other credentials with no major, or a major the SIS does not have, are left without one rather than guessed.

Records created in the SIS have no credential yet. The SIS refuses a second one for the same student, degree and graduation date, so a double major's second record arrives from Colleague. When Colleague records the credential, the import adopts the SIS record instead of adding another. From then on Colleague supplies the major, title, Latin honor and dates, as for any imported record. Your graduation type, formatted title, other honors and confirmation date stay.

The conferred major also appears on the student record's Graduation tab and under Degrees Conferred on the transcript.

Editing a Record

Click Edit on any record to modify:

• Graduation type
• Title (plain text and rich text)
• Latin honor
• Other honors -- choose any number; saving replaces the record's set of other honors

The student name, student number, and degree are displayed as read-only reference fields.

Creating a Record Manually

Click New Record to create a graduation record without going through the application workflow. This requires entering student ID, degree ID, graduation date, and the graduation date period.