Nearly 280 students who completed their two-year degrees and certificates in the summer and fall semesters of this year are eligible to participate in today’s commencement ceremony.

For the past 20 years, the school’s commencement ceremonies have been held at the Georgia Mountains Center. But from the college’s first commencement in 1967 through 1987, graduation was held in the gymnasium, which is now called the Hugh M. Mills Physical Education Complex said Sloan Jones, director of public relations and marketing for Gainesville State College.

"The ceremonies had just grown to the point where we had so many graduates we wouldn’t fit in the gym, so the logical move was to the Mountains Center," Jones said.

In order to bring graduation back to the campus this year, school officials decided to have two ceremonies per year. The May graduation will include students who completed their coursework in the spring semester.

"It will be a little bit smaller in size, but it gives students an opportunity to have graduation on a campus where they’ve done their coursework," Jones said.

Chancellor of the University System of Georgia Erroll B. Davis, Jr. will be the commencement speaker today. Jim Jolly and Felton Jenkins, both members of Georgia’s Board of Regents, the governing body for the University System of Georgia, will be present at the school’s first bi-annual commencement.

Gainesville State’s 30-member chorus will perform the music for the commencement.

Commencement begins at 10 a.m. in the Gainesville State College Hugh M. Mills Physical Education Complex.