Former Birmingham-Southern College students enjoy a graduation tradition for the last time

Clicking heels echoed across an empty Birmingham-Southern College campus as girls in white dresses and others in flowing graduation gowns gathered with their former classmates on Tuesday. A year after Birmingham-Southern closed, having succumbed to financial mismanagement, former students who are graduating this spring from Samford University visited the campus to capture a bit of tradition.

“It’s sentimental,” Graduating student Victoria Langevin said. “It’s very weird to be back just because I went here for three years and went to another school for one year.” 

Langevin found out her school was closing for good on spring break last year. She transferred to Samford University to finish her psychology degree.

“I definitely wish I was graduating from here,” Langevin said. “But I don’t know. I’m excited for my future.”

Sophie Rose Lovett also transferred to finish her degree.

“It’s great to see people you haven’t seen in a year again,” Lovett said with a smile. “I just wish we were wearing different robes.” 

Lovett said the original BSC robes would have been black instead of the deep blue of Samford University. She was not the only graduating student mourning the loss of her school 

“It’s like overwhelming,” Maddie Moravek said. “It’s familiar, but also really empty and different. It just feels weird, like, it’s not how we pictured any of it.”

These graduates did celebrate one tradition. All of the students gathered around a large bell, tucked between brick school buildings and beneath budding, green trees. Here, Victoria Langevin stepped up to the bell and, just as she once did as a BSC freshman, she rang it. The bell signifies the end of her four years in college and the end of her time at Birmingham-Southern College.