On Feb. 25, members of the Class of 2021 opened emails which made our stomachs drop. No commencement ceremony and no senior week. Quite the mic drop to receive in the middle of the day. Of course, it was apparent to most that school traditions this year would be much different given COVID-19 regulations. However, many felt that with the state capacity regulations for indoor and outdoor events, this decision was too limiting. Upon release of this news was almost immediate action from the senior class. Seniors Sydney Giacin ‘21 and Cameron DeLo ‘21 were at the forefront of creating a petition to change the graduation from April 11, back to the original plan of April 25, and to increase capacity to the state regulated amount. This petition spread quickly amongst the senior class, student body, and social media platforms—having gained almost 2,000 signatures by now. 

Following the petition was an open invite zoom meeting held on March 3 by the Thelmo Society. During this meeting, Thelmo passed a Senior Class Commencement Resolution, which is co-signed by 25 student groups. Within the resolution, a few points of justifications for a commencement later in April and at a larger capacity include improvements at SLU (resumption of Spring Liberty League competition and four scheduled Admitted Students Days), fundraising efforts of the Senior Class Council over the past four years, difficulty in changing travel plans, and changes with Federal and State level COVID regulations regarding capacity limits. 

Four days following the release of Thelmo’s Senior Class Commencement Resolution, President Fox emailed the seniors with better news. Following New York State Governor Cuomo’s announcement on March 3 of opening Arts & Entertainment venues at 33% capacity, the school decided to revert back to a plan that looked slighlty more like the original April 25 layout. President Fox’s email states that graduation is scheduled to take place on April 18 across four separate ceremonies. Depending on family units, each graduate will be assigned to one of the four graduation times; 9am, 11am, 1pm, or 3pm. Each of the four ceremonies are limited to 150 people, a limit which unfortunately does not allow guests to attend. President Fox’s email also adds that there will be a stage where graduates will walk across and have their names be called, as well as a Class Day to honor the four years spent together as a class. 

For many seniors, Class Day was the best piece of news in the recent email update.  “I’m just really happy Class Day was included in the mix, as it didn’t really seem we seniors were going to have anything at all like senior week” says Haley Whitmarsh ‘21. “It would have been one thing if we didn’t get to have the actual graduation ceremony, but it would’ve been significantly worse if we, as a class, also didn’t have the opportunity to spend our last college days together.” Perhaps most exciting of all, with the new commencement update, is the ceremony no longer being right before finals week. “Yeah, I’m happy they moved it because I probably wouldn’t have gone if it was before finals. Now that [graduation] is after, it gives us time to have a mini senior week and blow off some steam that’s been building for the last four years” says Jervey ‘21. “I think we need to say goodbye to our campus and enjoy the North Country one last time, and we wouldn’t have gotten that if graduation was before finals.”

As a senior, I’m glad that myself and fellow classmates will now leave St. Lawrence without having lost a milestone ceremony and an extra week on campus. Although graduation will not be perfect, this updated plan is far better than the initial one thanks to the unified action of the SLU community.