As the sun sets on Oracle Park and the fog starts to roll in, the droning from speakers in the infield seems to drag on for even longer than an average baseball game. San Francisco State University’s commencement ceremony lasted over four hours this year, but for graduates who got to the park when its doors opened and didn’t have their names read, the event felt a lot longer.

Home of the San Francisco Giants, Oracle Park has been the site of SFSU’s commencement for the last decade. Although the class of 2025’s fireworks show has long since ended, one student at SFSU is hoping to spark change for future graduating classes. Her vision is to have every student’s name read aloud and every student’s hard work recognized.

Marin Mason, a creative writing student set to graduate in 2026, is the person behind the Instagram account @fixourcommencementsfsu. With its first post on May 28, Mason has grown the account to over 250 followers in two weeks. She is organizing current students and alumni who are sick of the school holding graduation at Oracle Park, especially when that entails having their one moment of recognition being on a four-way split jumbotron while they walk.

“I had just heard people complaining about it a lot. I heard seniors in my environmental science class my freshman year talk about how their names aren’t going to be announced, and it’s going to be so long because they shove all graduates into one ceremony,” Mason said. “My friend and roommate, who encouraged me to come to State, has been working tirelessly for her degree for almost seven years and was really bummed when she heard how our commencement was run. So I just kind of was like, ‘Hey, like why not try to fix this?’”

Since 2015, Oracle Park — formerly AT&T Park — has sent off graduating Gators into the real world. The process is overseen by a committee of SFSU faculty and students, currently headed by the university’s Chief of Staff Luis De Paz Fernandez, who is on leave until August. Any changes made by the committee to the ceremony would only take effect in 2027. 

“Unfortunately, reading of names is not possible with an all-in-one ceremony at Oracle Park with thousands of participants,” said SFSU’s Director of Communications Bobby King over email. “Reading names would require a smaller venue and multiple ceremonies, something which the committee will likely review as well. They will weigh a lot of information, including cost and student feedback. This may be an instance, though, where no one solution pleases all.”

A smaller venue and multiple ceremonies is a solution that would please Mason. Through her posting on Instagram, Mason points to other commencement ceremonies at schools such as California State University, Fullerton, which split their event among the school’s different colleges.

“I did research because I know tons of people who went to different schools, schools much bigger than SF State, and they split up the ceremonies based on their departments,” Mason said. “Some people split up ceremonies based on last name, which personally I would prefer if they split it up by departments.”

While SFSU’s departments do host their own graduation celebrations, Mason is referring to splitting commencement into different groupings, based on last names or the university’s seven colleges. 

SFSU has hosted a split graduation at Oracle once before. During lockdown and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the graduating classes of 2020 and 2021 took to the field the day before the class of 2022 did. But with baseball to play and rental fees to pay, multiple commencements at Oracle Park might not be feasible for a university that is already facing severe budget cuts.

But Mason isn’t asking for that. According to her, what she and other students are calling for could be done on campus. While SFSU’s commencement saw over 7,000 graduates receive their empty diploma holders, Cal State Fullerton’s commencements contained more students total when combined, who all had their names read on campus.

According to an email from Cerise Metzger, Cal State Fullerton’s director of communications, roughly 10,000 graduating Titans walk across 12 different stages over four days, all on campus. All of their names are read aloud.

SFSU’s ceremony used to be held on campus before it was moved to Oracle Park. A video posted to YouTube by SFSU shows commencement ceremonies taking place at Cox Stadium from 1989 up until 2008. 

While Mason admitted that having the ceremony at Oracle Park is a cool feature, she stressed the importance of having the accomplishments of all graduates recognized, both for her and others she’s heard from.

“If it’s between having it at Oracle Park and going through that, or having it on campus and having it split up, and having each student properly recognized, I’m sure most students would prefer that second option,” Mason said.

Melissa Jimenez, a Latina/Latino studies student at SFSU, holds the same view. Set to graduate in 2026, Jimenez wants more recognition for the accomplishments of her and her peers.

“It’s not just studying, it’s not just writing, it’s not these things that include paper, pens, and a computer that seems so simple,” Jimenez said. “It’s things that actually take a toll on our mental health and possibly even our physical health.”

Jimenez, who helped to organize this year’s Latina/Latino studies department graduation, followed the account when it first popped into her feed. She said that the points made by Mason resonate with her and other students who want their hard work recognized. 

“It’s so quick, you barely even have a few seconds. And if you have time to take a picture, like in the screenshot, your face comes out blurry. What is that?” Jimenez said. “You’re not able to get praised for more than four years of education, that you put yourself through hell and back.”

Despite its criticisms, commencement at Oracle Park isn’t all doom and gloom. Aleesa Higginbotham attended 2024’s commencement ceremony, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Higginbotham, who plans to pursue a master’s degree in psychology, thought that the ceremony at Oracle Park was a fitting end to her time at SFSU.

“I really enjoyed it,” Higginbotham said. “It was fun and I felt like it put everything together that I did in those four years.”

Higginbotham had mostly pleasant memories of her graduation ceremony but also shared one major criticism: the lack of graduates’ names being said aloud.

“I liked Oracle Park, it was pretty cool… the view is nice, and the SF Giants play there,” Higginbotham said. “What I didn’t like is that they didn’t call names, but other than that, I liked it.”

For some students, Oracle Park’s prestige and garlic fries fail to outweigh the sacrifices made in order to host commencement there. The petition that Mason started to call for the names of graduates to be read for all attending their commencement had 222 signatures at the time of publication. 

Nerissa Cruz, a former cinema student who graduated in 2024, skipped her department graduation planned for the same day in favor of attending “the big one,” a decision she now regrets.

“I forgot what time it started at, but it was way too long,” Cruz said. “It was like to the point where I was like, ‘Just give me my diploma and I’m just gonna leave.’”

Long bathroom lines, a difficult parking situation and the bay chill are reasons Cruz supports the idea that commencement should take place on campus.

“I might as well get my name called after doing all this work, going to school during the pandemic and dealing with SF State budget cuts, not knowing if I was able to graduate on time,” Cruz said. “I just want to be acknowledged, instead of like, ‘Okay, here’s your thing, get out.’”

Continuing to share anecdotes about graduation from followers on the page, Mason plans to keep pushing to have graduates’ names read at SFSU’s commencement ceremony, even if that means relocating it from Oracle Park. 

“I was super taken aback when I got 100 signatures within like two days. I knew this was a problem, but I didn’t know how bad it was,” Mason said. “I didn’t know how badly students just wanted to be recognized for their achievements, and it does matter. And it just drives me more to push this initiative.”

Mason is attempting to collect 1,000 signatures on the petition before the end of summer break — a feat she believes is possible if students help to spread the word.

“At the end of the day, it’s not just about me. It’s about everyone,” Mason said. “It’s about all Gators graduating in 2026, 2027. It’s for the future of our students.”