Santa Clara Offers Graduation Plan to Seniors

As the pandemic improves, Santa Clara makes in-person and digital celebrations

In a year where many traditions have been cancelled, Santa Clara announced that it will be hosting an optional, in-person graduation for the Class of 2021. 

Graduation will happen over two days with an in-person celebration on June 11 and a virtual commencement on June 12.

The in-person celebration will be optional and offered first-come-first-serve to seniors, while the Virtual Commencement will honor all seniors in an effort to include everyone, including friends and family, safely in the graduation celebrations. 

Acting President Lisa Kloppenberg announced the two ceremonies on April 1 in an email which outlined the options for the Class of 2021 as they prepare to leave Santa Clara. 

The email outlined several factors which argue for the safety of an in-person graduation celebration. Most notably, it is only graduates themselves who will be allowed to attend—although the ceremony will be livestreamed for loved ones to watch. 

The celebration will only include students receiving their diplomas in graduation gowns and having their photo taken instead of the full ceremony normally offered before 2020. Masks and social distancing will be followed and any out-of-state individuals are recommended to quarantine. 

This in-person celebration will not be attended by all graduates and eligible students have been asked to reserve a spot in the celebration. Sign-ups, sent out yesterday by the event planning office, are first-come-first-serve and students will reserve a time block, rather than being called by school or major. 

This leaves the question of whether graduates will be scrambling to get their moment to shine or choose the guaranteed safety or saved expense of staying home. 

Some seniors, like Lydia Fitzgerald, plan on attending the in-person ceremony but resents the limitations placed on the ceremony. 

“The celebration in place is anticlimactic and lacks effort to make this occasion worth celebrating for anyone but the individual graduate,” said Fitzgerald. “I’ll be celebrating my momentous and milestone graduation by myself in California with my family watching on zoom on the east coast, it’s sad for my family who supported my academic career who don’t have incentive for spending the money to travel and stay in California to celebrate me.”

Kloppenberg noted that more details will become available over the next two months as they monitor state and county public health guidelines. Santa Clara has been taking advantage of the recent improvements in California due to it’s vaccination timelines by inviting some on-campus student residents for spring quarter and hoping for an in-person fall quarter. 

The upbeat tone of the email frames this update as a light at the end of the tunnel of a hard year. 

“You, the Class of 2021, have persevered and succeeded in a most challenging and uncertain time,” said Kloppenberg. “We are extremely proud of you and it will be a pleasure to acknowledge your accomplishments at the virtual event on June 12 and celebrate with some of you in person on June 11.”