Her first reaction after receiving the email from the
Universityof Tampa announcing that commencement would be conducted online was to cry. Up
and down the spine of Florida, larger colleges were announcing plans for
in-person graduations — so why not hers? Then 22-year-old Allison Clark dried
her tears and turned to Instagram, asking her followers: If Tampa hosted an
in-person graduation, would they attend?
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When 80 percent of the respondents said “Yes,” she and two
classmates created a GoFundMe and started selling tickets. They were quickly
overwhelmed as classmates and their parents pitched in more than $25,000 —
significantly more than the $12,000 price tag for the convention center they
are renting for their self-funded graduation, now scheduled for next week.
There will not be too many do-it-yourself graduations, but
across the country parents and graduates will confront commencements in May
that are as atypical, modified and sometimes contentious as the past school
year has been.
Many of the schools doing in-person ceremonies are putting in
extensive safety measures, like the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, which
is requiring graduates and their families to provide proof of vaccination, or
else a negative
coronavirus test, said the university’s president, Heidi M.
Anderson. Rhodes College is seating participants in pods of eight and issuing
each person a ticket for the purpose of contact tracing.
Vanderbilt University and Northeastern University are among
those staggering arrival times at the ceremony, so that students enter the
venue in shifts, reducing the size of each gathering.
Most colleges are placing restrictions on the number of guests
each graduate is allowed to bring. Brown and Yale Universities are among
schools that only allow students to the ceremony. Parents can watch a
livestreamed version.
But in the second year of the pandemic, with millions
vaccinated, more campuses than not are choosing to do in-person events,
according to Mildred Garcia, president of the American Association of State
Colleges and Universities. As a result, campuses that are sticking to
virtual-only ceremonies have become outliers, sometimes breeding frustration.
“To be with my classmates, to walk across the stage, to receive
the diploma that we all worked so hard for, it means absolutely everything, and
a 45-minute virtual commencement of my name being scrolled across the screen
just simply wasn’t enough,” said Clark at the University of Tampa.
Especially vexing for the graduating senior was learning that
the University of Florida — which is graduating a class five times larger than
the private college in Tampa — was planning on an in-person ceremony. So are
the University of South Florida, Florida State University and the University of
Miami, all of them significantly larger than Tampa, which has an undergraduate
enrollment of less than 9,000 students.
In an emailed statement, a university spokesperson, Eric
Cardenas, reiterated what college leaders told the student body two months ago
when they announced plans for a virtual-only event: “Simply put, given the
continued uncertainty of COVID-19, advice from public health officials and
rules governing large gatherings, the university could not realistically host a
safe — yet meaningful — academic celebration.”
Peter Hotez, the co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for
Vaccine Development, said that universities — as well as unhappy parents and
graduates complaining about virtual commencements — were overlooking a
common-sense solution.
“The answer is very simple,” he said. “By July or August, we
should have a dramatic decline in transmission because the amount of vaccine
coverage would be dramatically increased by then,” he explained. “Just postpone
graduation to the end of the summer.”
He added that universities — especially ones that are in
proximity to one another, or that are part of a consortium like the Big Ten
athletic conference — should have a uniform approach, since the lack of
coordination sows confusion. “The best thing to do is not have one school do
one thing, and another school do another,” he said.
But that coordination is not happening, and because each
institution is making its own decision, the result is an uneven landscape.
Tammy Dahlstrom, whose 22-year-old daughter is graduating this
weekend from the University of Michigan, said the contrast with nearby
institutions had made the university’s decision to hold an online event
difficult to accept.
The Ann Arbor campus is built around the university’s iconic
stadium, which is capable of seating more than 100,000 people — and is both the
largest in the country, and one of the largest in the world.
Yet campuses in Michigan with far less outdoor seating capacity
are going ahead with in-person events, like Michigan State University, which
announced it would hold 50 staggered ceremonies to ensure social distancing,
and the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus. Michigan is one of the only
Big Ten schools to opt for a virtual commencement.
“It is inconceivable that we would be in the same position this
year when the university had a year to plan,” Dahlstrom said in an email.
Parents began an email and text message campaign to try to get
the administration to change its plan. A petition garnered close to 6,000
names.
When that still did not move the needle, Dahlstrom drove the 2
1/2 hours from her home in North Muskegon, on the shore of Lake Michigan, to
join a small group of parents and students who stood on the streets of Ann
Arbor, holding up placards demanding an in-person ceremony.
Michigan has one of the highest coronavirus caseloads in the
country, and hospitals have been overwhelmed, but parents point to numerous
other campuses across the state that are choosing to do in-person
commencements.
Possibly because of pressure from the parent group, the
university has made a number of changes. In early March, the administration
announced that graduating seniors would be allowed to go into the stadium to
take pictures.
Following continued pressure, the university announced in late
March that students would be allowed to watch the graduation on a screen, while
sitting inside the stadium.
Calder Lewis, an editor for the university’s daily newspaper who
covered the protest, said parents were more engaged in the pushback than
students were. “For a lot of parents, this is their kids’ last chance to get
something normal out of their college experience, and they want to see just one
last send-off,” he said.
The decision on what kind of commencement to hold is
particularly charged at universities where a majority of students are the first
in their family to go to college.
“It is a generational celebration,” said Anderson, who was
herself the first in her family to graduate and now heads the University of
Maryland Eastern Shore, where a majority of students are in the same category.
That is the same calculus that pushed Montclair State University
to become one of the few campuses in New Jersey to hold an in-person ceremony
last year, despite a letter of objection signed by 120 faculty members. (It is
having an in-person ceremony this year, too.)
Meanwhile in Tampa, the three organizers of the do-it-yourself
graduation are pulling out all the stops to give their classmates a real
commencement, even as the university has made it clear that it does not endorse
it. Attendees will receive a 10-page program. A video and slideshow tribute
featuring each participating senior will play before the graduate walks across
the stage of the rented convention hall.
Because the students are not authorized to give out diplomas to
their classmates, the organizers have instead printed certificates marking the
occasion, which will be laid out on a table — a no-contact approach in a nod to
safety protocols.
“This is a moment that every kid dreams of growing up,” said
Emma Stange, one of the organizers. “To not really have that celebratory
closure when you move on to the next stage of life, it just leaves an open,
hanging end.”
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