Grads Get $250 Refund After N.J. University’s ‘Chaotic’ Commencement

Stevens Institute of Technology will refund each graduate $250 after the school’s commencement ceremonies dissolved into a “chaotic experience” due to poor planning, the university’s president said. Stevens Institute’s university-wide commencement ceremony at the Prudential Center in Newark on Wednesday morning was plagued by “a number of delays,” Farvardin said in a message to graduates on Monday. Another ceremony — for the School of Engineering and Science and the School of Systems and Enterprises — held later that day down the street at Newark Symphony Hall had even bigger problems when the graduates were told to leave the ceremony due to overcrowding in the building, officials said.