In December, SUNY Oswego will hold its second virtual graduation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, next month’s ceremony will look significantly different from the initial event.

SUNY Oswego held the May 2020 graduation online, after finishing the semester virtually. However, Wayne Westervelt, SUNY Oswego’s chief communication officer, emphasized that the ceremony was not intended to be a true graduation. 

“We really held what we characterized as a graduation celebration,” Westervelt said. “It was not a commencement, in May … We were really hoping that we could celebrate the graduates, and then bring them face-to-face for a ceremony this fall.” 

May’s virtual ceremony featured appearances by New York State Senator Chuck Schumer, and SUNY Oswego alumnus Al Roker. Former Student Association President Takeena Strachan, faculty chair Lisa Glidden and SUNY Oswego President Deborah Stanley also spoke during the event. 

The ceremony did not celebrate individual graduates, which Westervelt said will be a major part of the December commencement. 

“Graduates will have their names listed on screen, announced and read with any honors,” Westervelt said. “On Dec. 12, we’ll be celebrating ‘Commencement 2020.’ Not the December commencement, not the May, but in essence the entire class of 2020.” 

The commencement will be broken up into five separate ceremonies, to take place concurrently. There will be individual ceremonies for each of the four schools: college of liberals arts and sciences; school of business; school of communication, media and the arts; and the school of education, as well as one for the master’s program.

“The feedback from Spring 2020 played a big role for this semester in how the planning went,” Student Association President Lizeth Ortega-Ramirez said. “Students were very vocal about how they felt in the spring semester.”

The school has partnered with StageClip, a company specializing in virtual graduations, to help coordinate the commencement ceremony. Through StageClip, graduates will be able to submit photos and videos that can be shown when their names are announced. The company is also working to roll out graduation and Oswego-themed filters for both Instagram and Snapchat. 

One of the filters is a digital cap and gown, although the school will still be offering the traditional cap and gown for graduates. This is another contrast from the May ceremony, where the school did not initially offer the cap and gowns, cords or diploma covers to graduates. 

“We didn’t want to roll out all the commencement-related things, because we didn’t want our graduates in May to think that we weren’t going to revisit this,” Westervelt said.

SUNY Oswego has also launched a new section of their website dedicated to the December commencement. It is a “one-stop shop for caps and gowns, cords, hoods, diploma covers, celebration signs, Snapchat and Instagram filters and more,” as described by Stanley in an email to students.

Although an in-person graduation is currently not a possibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students have still expressed their strong desire for a traditional commencement. Graduates were surveyed before the celebration in May, with Westervelt reporting that “an overwhelming number” said they desired a face-to-face ceremony.

“I’m a little disappointed that I won’t be able to walk across the stage, and stand with my peers as it is what I always imagined,” said Sarah Nehama, a December graduate. “But I understand why that can’t be done. Safety is and should be the top priority.”

However, depending on the future status of COVID-19, December graduates would be allowed to walk the stage at a potential in-person commencement in May 2021. Westervelt said that most December graduates do not typically return for the May ceremony, although he acknowledged that the unique circumstances this year could change that. 

Nehama said a return for a May commencement ceremony is truly unknown, as getting a job out of state could make her “more inclined to say put because of logistics.”

“I hope that this virtual ceremony can compensate, even just a little bit,” Ortega-Ramirez said. “You can’t really compare an in-person celebration with a virtual celebration … but [SUNY Oswego] really took the feedback to heart.” 

Photo by Nicole Hube | The Oswegonian