Although they've never required tickets before, this year, tickets will be required and each graduate will only be allowed three guests. Everybody will have to arrive two hours early just so that each person can pass individually through a metal detector and security screening. This year, there will also be no processional for the proud graduates.

Many BYU students, faculty and alumni find a Dick Cheney commencement speech disconcerting and unacceptable. As even the Economist reported, "Dick Cheney is so unpopular that he has provoked protests even at Brigham Young University, a Mormon redoubt which is as conservative as they come."

They are not so much upset about the security measures - instead, these students and faculty believe Cheney is an unworthy speaker for their graduation.

In the wake of these announcements and the invitation extended to Cheney to be the commencement speaker at Brigham Young University, protests have grown at Brigham Young University (BYU) campus. According to BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins, these are the first student political protest on the BYU campus in over 15 years!

It's usually a quiet campus. Not now.

Hundreds of students are participating in campus demonstrations to protest Cheney's upcoming presence - even though students and faculty at BYU are not known for political protests, especially those aimed at U.S. Presidents and their administrations.

Petitions have also been circulating quietly and persistently. Some 3,600+ students and alumni had signed petitions seeking a "more appropriate" replacement speaker. Many more signatures are expected in the coming two weeks.

There has been very little shouting, no chanting - just peaceful expressions of opinions. One BYU blogger named "Stirling" documented some of the sign slogans with his camera, including one that read, "Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Torture."

"The problem is this is a morally dubious man," said Andrew Christensen, a 22-year-old Republican from Salt Lake City. "It's challenging the morality and integrity of this institution."

BYU Junior Stephanie Marquez, a Latin American Studies major, held up a sign that said, "You lied. They died," a reference to discredited reports about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The sign included a mosaic of the faces of every member of the military killed in Iraq.

"My main concern is that BYU has always maintained political neutrality," Marquez said. "I feel like Cheney coming to speak at our commencement is a way of endorsing the Bush Administration."

One Mormon student blogger (name: "onelowerlight") said, "One good thing about the demonstrations was that it got people talking, more than they would be without the protests." He took some great pictures here, that are worthy of a look. Even more photographs can be found here.

Warner P. Woodworth, 65, an independent and a professor at the university's Marriott School of Management, questioned Mr. Cheney's assertions about Al Qaeda's ties to the government of Saddam Hussein and his involvement in disclosing the identity of Valerie Wilson, a covert officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, which led to the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff.

"It just feels like too much sleaze and not the right values for B.Y.U.," Woodworth said. "We espouse honesty, chastity, integrity, ethics, virtue and morality, and he does not epitomize those values."

"My big thing is that he's towards torture," said protester Anne Zobell. "That's unacceptable." A senior at BYU who will be graduating later this month, Zobell said she might not attend commencement ceremonies because her father objects to Cheney's visit. If she does go, she said, she will leave before Cheney speaks.

Diane Bailey, one of the protesters explained that she and other demonstrators answered questions and engaged in peaceful political dialogue with students of all backgrounds, "I think that before our protest, most members of our local community had only been exposed to anti-Mormon protests, which are typically offensive, loud, and hate-filled. We showed our community that protests can be positive catalysts for discussion and compromise."

Bailey notes that on the national scale, many people were surprised to learn that not everyone at BYU supports Dick Cheney's actions. "We corrected misconceptions that BYU students are all conservative robots (in fact, maybe we did Mitt Romney a favor). Finally, we let thousands of people know that the people of America will not blindly endorse the immoral acts of Vice President Dick Cheney; we love this country too much to do so," she added.

In summary, Bailey said simply, "Free speech rocks."

A blogger at TalkLeft, Jeralyn noted that BYU maintained weird control over the protest and confiscated all of the signs at the end of the first day. She wrote, "As soon as 1:00 hit and the time for free speech expired, after an impromptu performance of the Star Spangled Banner by the BYU Democrats, men from BYU dressed in suits and sunglasses with Secret Service-style earpieces roughly rounded up all of the signage and banners. 'You'll be able to use it all again. We're just going to keep it for you. So you don't carry it around campus, we'll take it to a safe place until the next designated protest.' It was like Daddy deciding that the kids had had enough play time and was taking their toys away."

Sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU is a private University whose students and faculty adhere to a strict honor code that forbids everything from alcohol and tobacco to drinking coffee and wearing shorts or short skirts.

Even so, the passion runs high among these student protesters.

Their petition reads, in part, "Over the past six years, Vice President Cheney and his office have been the center of great national controversy. During this time, Cheney has made misleading statements about the tragic war which continues in Iraq, levied outrageous partisan accusations against his Democratic opponents, and used vulgarity on the Senate floor. He has been linked to serious scandals involving botched intelligence reports, no-bid contracts awarded to friends and political donors, and perjury convictions handed down to his own staff. Mr. Cheney is simply not the type of role model to whom we wish to bestow the responsibility of addressing our best and brightest as they go forth to serve."

They are still getting signatures on their petition here.

Students are planning more protests on the day of their commencement, calling it the "alternative commencement." As Joe Vogel, Huffington Post blogger, notes, "Students for BYU Alternative Commencement has now raised several thousand dollars to host their separate ceremony. Organizer and BYU student Ashley Sanders, who will be graduating in just over a week, has asked that her parents' graduation gift be a donation to the cause. Numerous other students have sacrificed what limited funds they have to help make a commencement where they feel represented, where their voices matter, become a reality. BYU may indeed be the reddest campus in the reddest county in the reddest state in the country. But some students--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike--are determined to show they won't clap for corruption on commencement day. They will make their own voices count."

Diane Bailey explains why she and the other students will continue their protests. She said that after having critically analyzed the policies of Dick Cheney, the students want to instead suggest a different and more positive way forward for our nation, "We encourage the rising generation of BYU students and graduates to go forth and establish peace."

Bailey says that the future belongs to today's youth, "who must use violence only as last resort and use their education to establish peace in our society."

Tricia Campbell, 21, a senior from Orem who is a Republican, said Mr. Cheney's behavior in office "just doesn't fit" with what she had learned from the university's mission of promoting of "integrity, character and moral development."

"I thought commencement would be a spiritual, uplifting exercise in which I could take advice from someone I held in the highest esteem," Campbell said.

(opening photo courtesy of NY Times photographer, George Frey; the next two from Steve Griffin of the Salt Lake Tribune; the next photo courtesy of Genevee Stokes, a BYU student; the final three courtesy of BYU student blogger, onelowerlight; and, lastly, the watercolors of Dick Cheney are by artist and sketchpad blogger, Amanda Kavanagh)