SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — On Monday, Chancellor Kent Syverud announced in an email that Syracuse University would be holding a virtual degree conferral ceremony for graduates on Sunday, May 10. Before it was postponed due to COVID-19, Commencement was scheduled to be held that day. In the email, Chancellor Syverud also said that the University is working on planning an in-person Commencement for the fall.
One Syracuse senior, AJ Fabbri, pointed out that after spending his last month and a half of classes in virtual classrooms, the idea of a virtual ceremony is not very appealing.
“I can’t really get excited about it. Obviously, these are strange times, but it doesn’t pique my interest too much,” says Fabbri.
Another senior, Sean Scott, would rather be celebrating in-person, too, but is going to try to make the most of situation anyway.
“I was thinking we were probably gonna put up the ceremony on my laptop or whatever and hook it up to our TV and still kind of enjoy it and celebrate it as a family in the living room,” says Scott.
Scott also acknowledged that he felt the University was doing the best it could under the given circumstances, and that he is excited for the possibility of a fall Commencement.
“I think it’s probably the best of both worlds,” he said. “For us seniors, we still get an in-person Commencement in the fall, so we can still celebrate with each other as we all wanted, but I think it would be nice to go ahead and have our degrees, at least unofficially, however this is going to work, at the original date in May as well.”
Fabbri noted he would like to attend the fall Commencement, but he is unsure of what his situation will be like in a few months as he looks for a job. Either way, both students are hopeful things will be back to normal by the fall and that they will be able to return to campus to celebrate their achievement with their classmates.
