By Paulo Fugen

Northwestern University in Qatar will not be awarding the traditional valedictorian and Latin honors at the NU-Q Class of 2014’s graduation ceremony this year, according to a university official.

The valedictorian and Latin honors, which include the degree designations of the cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude, recognize students who have achieved academic excellence, with the highest academically ranked student in the graduating class becoming the class valedictorian.

According to Emily Wilson, Manager for Community Relations at NU-Q, the university will not have time to determine candidates for the honors because final examinations at the university end on May 1, just three days before the graduation ceremony.  

Wilson also said that NU-Q students’ grades from courses taken at other Education City campuses would only be made available after the graduation ceremony. Even though they would count as pass/fail courses, they still need to be processed to fill out students’ degree requirements, which means that academic transcripts will not be finalized in time.

Wilson explained that they could not reschedule the ceremony, as Qatar Foundation reserved the use of the Qatar National Convention Center space for NU-Q on May 3. It could not be changed as QF already set an iron-clad date for the Hamad Bin Khalifa University Convocation on May 7. “There is no time to calculate everything correctly,” said Wilson.

Some students understood the university’s position. “In an ideal situation, it would be better to announce the valedictorian during graduation”, said Muna Barakat, a communications student from the Class of 2014, “It is not a perfect situation, but I understand their point [about the lack of time for calculations].”

However, Wilson said that the university would still recognize the highest achievers in the Class of 2014 and reward students with special honors at this year’s ceremony, as new distinctions of “high”, “higher” and “highest” will replace the Latin honors and a “Dean’s Award” will replace the valedictorian honor. These awards do not require the specific calculations needed for Latin honors.

Students who have made the dean’s list four times will receive the “high” honor. The “higher” honor requires students to make the list five times, while the “highest” honor requires seven appearances on the list. According to Wilson, the Dean’s Award winner will be chosen from a shortlist of students who have shown academic achievement and made significant contributions to the NU-Q community.

Some of the graduating students approved of this new system. “It’s good because more people get to be recognized with the [new system],” said Saad Khan, a communications student from the Class of 2014. “With the new system… more people will go home happy.”

The university will still award students with the traditional Latin honors a few days after the ceremony and have planned additional events for these honor students. Another dinner will be hosted just for the Latin honor recipients, where the valedictorian will give a speech, said Wilson.

Wilson said that she hoped that the additional events would make up for the fact that the traditional honors won’t be recognized at the graduation ceremony. “It’s a big deal to win one of those [Latin awards],” she said.

Wilson also added that the valedictorian will have the opportunity to attend the main graduation ceremony this year in June at NU’s main campus in Evanston, Illinois.

“I think it’s a great honor for anyone [from the graduating class] to go to Evanston and be recognized as the valedictorian [of NU-Q],” said Khan. “I think there is nothing better than that.”

However, Khan also felt that there could have been an alternative solution to dealing with the problem of obtaining final grades after the graduation ceremony.

He said that the university could rely on predicted grades to determine which students should be awarded with Latin honors. “Ask their specific professors what their expected grades will be and then give them [the Latin honors] based on those expected grades,” said Khan.