After being hosted in Spokane for eight years, Eastern Washington University’s commencement ceremony will be back in Cheney this spring.

Both EWU and the Cheney community are making preparations to celebrate having graduates back in the city.

“I think everyone is excited for keeping those grads and their families out here, by visiting the restaurants, the bars, the things that students did out here,” said Douglas LaBar, the owner of The Mason Jar.

The commencement has been at the Arena, the Podium, as well as online in the past eight years, and both EWU staff as well as Cheney businesses are thrilled to have the ceremony back home.

“As a community we’re doing a street dance on Saturday, the 14th, at 6 o’clock,” LaBar said. “It’s going to be a big event. We’re shutting down the street. We’re having flamethrowing, we’re having a DJ, we’re having fireworks afterward.”

The block party will also have food vendors, LaBar said. The party is being put on by the Cheney Members Association, a group of business owners who work together to put on events in Cheney.

“It’s just one of those things where we always were kind of confused why they moved it. We understood capacity wise, but it was kind of an odd time because there was such a push to make Cheney a real college town again, like get more people living on campus,” LaBar said.

Previously held at Roos Field, unpredictable weather year after year pushed the university to make the move to the Spokane Arena. The university also anticipated they were outgrowing Roos field for the ceremony, according to a Spokesman-Review article.

“I do know it was a priority with the President, to bring ceremonies back to campus,” Rob Davis, an events manager at EWU, said over email. “To control the elements as best we could, the decision was made to hold the ceremonies at Reese Court moving forward.”

Bekha Bray, the provost’s executive assistant and vice president for academic affairs, has been working closely with Davis on the logistic side of planning the ceremonies.

“A lot of our students begin their Eastern journeys here on the Cheney campus, so it’s really fun for us to be able to see those students come back and kind of finish out their time here,” Bray said.

Since space is limited, commencement will be broken up into six separate ceremonies.

“The great thing about this is, even with six ceremonies spread out over two days, it allows us to be more college specific for each ceremony,” Davis said.

Eric Limburg, the associate vice president of university relations, said he has been working to engage the Cheney community.

“As a student, you know that Eastern is Cheney and Cheney is Eastern,” Limburg said. “There’s so many positive things that are happening in Cheney and with Eastern Washington, that we just want people to see that. We want parents to see that, we want alumni to feel good about coming back to Cheney and seeing the cool growth that’s happening.”

Kelsey Hatch-Brecek, head of alumni relations, speaks every year at the ceremonies. Though she will have to do her speech six different times, she couldn’t be happier that commencement is back on campus.

“This is going to feel, I think, a lot more home,” Hatch-Brecek said. “Home is just the word that keeps floating in my mind.”

Bray said the move back to campus would not have been possible without the team that’s been working on commencement.

“We have our records and registration office, we have our grad studies office, our alumni services office, our bookstore, it’s really a campus-wide effort,” Bray said. “So that’s fun to be part of that experience.”

There was a commencement in May, which was the first to take place back in Cheney.

“We had our semester commencement on May 2nd, and it went so smooth many of us were like, there has to be something that’s gone wrong that we just haven’t noticed. But there wasn’t,” Bray said. “It was fantastic. And I think our hard work and our teamwork really paid off.”

The Eagle Store, in preparation for the ceremony, will also be extending their hours for the weekend. Alumni clothing will be 20% off.

Parking will be available for free in lots P9, P12, and P16 and guest seating will begin approximately one hour prior to the beginning of each ceremony. Reese Court has a clear bag policy.

There will also be an area to view the live stream of the ceremonies in the PUB for any overflow of guests or families.

Both Cheney community members and EWU staff hope that families of graduates will get to experience their grads’ connection to Eastern and Cheney.

“Eastern’s this small university that’s really personal and you connect with people, right?” Limburg said. “And that’s kind of how commencement’s going to be.”