People have every right to be frustrated with the disruption COVID-19 has brought to their normal, day-to-day life as well as events they had looked forward to during the spring and summer of 2020. While the disease’s size and seriousness should not be overshadowed, it does not make anyone less of a good person to be disappointed, angry, confused or any other kind of emotion at how COVID-19 may have negatively impacted their routine and plans.
Students, specifically seniors, have had the remainder of the academic year uprooted and moved online, taking them away from their campus, friends and in-person instruction. Students are perhaps mourning the cancellation of their graduation ceremony and senior events most, viewing them as the culmination of four years of hard work. As I said, it’s perfectly natural to feel angry and frustrated with senior year events being canceled but now is not the time to become fixated on unrealistic and outright dangerous replacement ideas.
Geneseo officially canceled their 2020 commencement ceremony via an email to the student body on March 22. Within days, at least two petitions were posted to the Geneseo Speaks website, a platform that allows students to raise issues and if petitions garner enough signatures, they may receive an official response from the school on the matter.
The first petition—posted March 22—was titled “Reschedule Graduation Ceremony For The Summer,” and the second—posted March 26—was titled “Reschedule Senior Week and Commencement For The Summer.” Both petitions were plugged in official Geneseo student Facebook pages along with messages urging students to support the cause.
While I admire the optimism and creative thinking of the students who created and signed these petitions, I think everyone needs to take a step back and view the commencement cancellation in a broader context.
We are living in a global pandemic. This isn’t the common flu. Read the first sentence of this paragraph again. More than 185 countries have reported cases of COVID-19 and the number of global cases recently topped 2 million. The United States itself accounts for more than 600,000 of those cases. The disease is incredibly contagious and its impact on the world’s daily order is unprecedented.
Despite the president’s unfounded belief that some states may be able to resume normalcy by May 1, there is evidence indicating nothing about this pandemic may clear up until the fall at the earliest. Other countries have tried to “reopen” after they saw improvements in the number of cases and, almost immediately, a second wave of the virus appeared.
Those calling for commencement to be rescheduled to the summer are either ignoring the news reports or living in a drastically different reality than the rest of us. Bringing together a large group of people sometime between June and August—even though according to AP News, New York has banned large gatherings of any size or for any reason—is a dangerous and selfish proposal.
As schools even begin the tough conversations to possibly conduct the fall 2020 semester online, it’s clear nothing about this pandemic is to be taken lightly. Instead of conducting research into when experts are predicting for COVID-19’s end and what they’re advising to help stop the spread, Geneseo students funnel their frustrations into spreading unrealistic and careless petitions that won’t happen. If they did, they would put thousands of people—including siblings, parents, grandparents and friends—at risk.
Commencement is one of the most exciting moments in any student’s academic career and it’s heartbreaking that the class of 2020 won’t be able to receive their diplomas in person, in front of their loved ones. Seniors will still graduate, however, once they finish their finals and final grades are uploaded. Concentrating your anger into pushing for an in-person ceremony several months before it may be safe to do so makes commencement seem like a life-or-death kind of event. I can assure you that, in the grand scheme of everything going on, it’s not.