Precommencement is the one with your graduate’s name

SLU splits spring graduation into two kinds of ceremony, and knowing which is which saves a family from travelling for the wrong one.

Precommencement comes first, in the days before the main ceremony. Each school holds its own, organised by the school itself, and this is where every graduate’s name is called and they cross the stage. The schools send their graduates the details directly; the university calendar simply blocks out those days as graduation events.

Commencement is the university-wide ceremony at Chaifetz Arena on the Saturday that ends the week. It is the formal occasion, with the president, the honorary degrees and a commencement speaker, and SLU is explicit that no names are read there.

Families are welcome at both, and SLU does not require either. If only one fits your trip, the precommencement is the ceremony with your graduate’s moment in it. For a graduate earning degrees from two schools, SLU allows both precommencement ceremonies, or a choice of one.

No tickets, no limit

This is the easy part. SLU requires no tickets for precommencement or for Commencement, and sets no limit on how many guests a graduate can bring. Seating is open throughout, apart from the rows kept for graduates and faculty, so a large family that wants to sit together should simply arrive together and early.

Bags follow Chaifetz Arena’s own clear-bag rules and prohibited-items list, which the arena publishes on its website. Accessible seating is available at every ceremony; ask an usher once you are through security.

December is one ceremony, with every name

SLU’s midyear ceremony, for students finishing in the fall, is a single ceremony at Chaifetz Arena on a Saturday morning in December. There are no precommencement ceremonies in December, so this one does both jobs: each graduate is recognized individually as they cross the stage, with the others from their school or college. It runs about an hour and a half.

Parking and drop-off

Parking is free in SLU’s Olive/Compton and Laclede garages during precommencement and Commencement, and accessible parking is in the same two garages. For a guest who cannot walk from the garage to the arena, there is a drop-off and pick-up lane on Compton Boulevard outside Gate C; you cannot park in it, but you can let someone out and come back for them afterwards.

Anyone who cannot come can watch: SLU streams its commencement ceremonies live on its website, YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Where to sleep

Chaifetz Arena is in Midtown, between downtown St. Louis and the Central West End, and there are rooms within walking distance. The Angad Arts Hotel in Grand Center, with 146 rooms, is the one SLU itself points to as walkable to campus and the arena, and it arranged a courtesy hotel block there for last spring’s commencement weekend. The Element in Midtown, with 153 rooms, is as close. A little further, the Aloft in the Cortex district and the Courtyard at Market and Jefferson add about 280 rooms more. None publishes a graduation-week minimum stay or prepayment rule.

Beyond that, this is a city campus with a city’s choice of hotels. Union Station is a few minutes east, downtown and the Arch a few more, and the Central West End’s restaurants and hotels are just to the west.

Because precommencement spreads families across three weekdays before the Saturday, demand is less concentrated than a single-day ceremony would make it. We have graded the pressure low on that reasoning and on the supply nearby; we have not measured availability for Commencement Week in St. Louis.