Columbia students react to not being notified about commencement cancelation
After Columbia’s decision to cancel this year’s commencement ceremony amid fears of disruption from protests, students have been vocal about their disappointment and frustration with university officials.
Commencement activities, usually held in tandem with program-specific graduation ceremonies, would have been held this week. The abrupt decision to cancel followed weeks of battle between student protesters and the university over divestment from Israel. This year, the university had announced that it would instead focus on the main individual graduation ceremonies for each program and opt out of the annual commencement ceremony on the main lawn that usually accompanies them and features all of the graduating classes.
Students expressed frustration not only with the decision to cancel but with the fact that the school made no official communication directly to students when it was announced.
The university announced the cancellation through a campus alert message on the school’s website; many students did not learn of the news until they were notified by email later that day, either from deans or student affairs for their programs, long after it had already been widely reported by international outlets, including the New York Times and CNN, and spread rapidly on social media.
Michelle Quarshie, 22, a graduating senior biology student at Columbia, said she was “shocked” when she heard the news, first seeing it posted on Instagram from the Columbia Spectator, the college newspaper.
She called the decision not to email students “cowardly.”
“I was like, ‘Wow, they couldn’t even have the guts to say it to our face,’” Quarshie said. “They had to go to shady means to make sure the student body would spread the rumor that commencement was canceled.”
For weeks, Columbia students were receiving regular updates about matters such as the protests and the level of access for the campus.
The last few weeks have been difficult for Quarshie in terms of being able to focus on school work and enjoying her last days as a student. She said everything that has happened has been a distraction from finishing some of her work.
“It’s definitely hard to focus on academics when my mind is on my friends who are in the encampment or my friends who were in Hamilton Hall that night,” Quarshie said.
With limited access to the campus in recent weeks, Quarshie said it has been a “bittersweet” end for her time as a student. She remembered how cheerful the campus felt during graduation season last year.
“It was a very happy time. You can tell there was joy on the campus, but that has been entirely erased,” Quarshie said. “I want to get out of here because of what’s going on, but it’s the end of my undergraduate experience. I’m not feeling the sweet feelings and nostalgia right now.”
Graduations are happening throughout the week at Columbia, including for students in the School of Journalism School scheduled for May 15. Some were particularly frustrated with the fact that they had not been notified directly by the school and had to find out from professional news outlets.
“It’s almost like the university just forgot to email us about canceling commencement—‘I’m sure they’ll hear it on the news’ kinda attitude,” Meghnad Bose, a master’s student, wrote in a group chat.
Julia Coccaro, a master’s student in the journalism school, said that while she supports the student protesters, she believed canceling the ceremony is “necessary.”
“There would have been some disruption in some form. It wouldn’t have gone smoothly and it wouldn’t have been able to play out in full, no matter what,” Coccaro said.
Coccaro said she would have felt differently if the actual class graduations were halted instead of the larger ceremony. From having experienced a previous commencement at Columbia, “it’s pretty much just a bunch of speeches. Given that it is mostly just ceremonial, I don’t think it is all that big of a deal,” Coccaro said.
Columbia is not alone in its decision to suspend or alter commencement activities this year. Other schools have followed suit in canceling large ceremonies in response to potential protests and disruption, including the University of Southern California, while Emory University in Atlanta moved its commencement activities off campus.
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