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Photo by REED HUTCHINSON
Estellaleigh Franenberg with orphaned diplomas
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Homeless diplomas
BY ANNE BURKE
Today Staff Writer
Geoffrey Raymond, are you there? Hey, Jung-Hoon Lee! Leslie Gail Donnerstag, come on down!
UCLA has a diploma with your name on it. It’s safely stored in a filing cabinet on the second floor of the James West Alumni Center, next to the men’s restroom. You can pick it up during regular business hours — no charge, no waiting.
Each year, hundreds of new grads head off into the world, leaving behind the piece of paper that represents four years of hard work and struggle.
Some diplomas go unclaimed because of unpaid fees or library fines, others because of confusion about how to retrieve them. Amid the swirl of graduation ceremonies and parties, some people just forget, said Cathy Lindstrom-Jacobson, associate registrar.
The oldest unclaimed diploma dates to 1927 and bears the name of one Orrel Comstock. The largest number in storage belongs, for some reason, to the class of 1998. Among the homeless diplomas are master’s and doctoral degrees.
While many of these orphans are eventually claimed — sometimes by children or grandchildren of the graduates — others are never united with their owners, so the stack keeps getting bigger. It now stands at 25,000 or more.
Enrollment and Degree Services, where unclaimed diplomas spend their first five years of life, has several drawers full, Lindstrom-Jacobson said. After five years, diplomas are carted off to the Alumni Center, where 23,000 of them are waiting, said Alumni Association manager Estellaleigh Franenberg.
One reason why diplomas often don’t get into the right hands is that by the time the prized parchment is ready for distribution, most grads are long gone.
So, spring ’06 grads, pay attention: Your diplomas will be ready in October. Check your mail in six to eight weeks for details about how to collect them.
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