As Commencement Activities Change, We Salute These Graduates
Welcome to this week’s Northrop MOVES Online. The month of May typically brings commencement season to the University campus. During any other May, those of us at Northrop would be watching several thousand graduates walk across our stage during 15 separate commencement ceremonies held within our walls. Our lobbies would be full of graduates in hats and gowns, faculty in regalia, families dressed to the nines and beaming with pride, all gathering together eating maroon and gold frosted cupcakes, drinking punch, and snapping photos. We would be in a state of ongoing, collective celebration, the air full of anticipation and plans for the future.
This is not any other May. This is May 2020, and it looks a little different.
The graduating class of 2020 enters into a daunting new world, without some of the traditional pomp and circumstance that typically accompanies this capstone moment. The important transition from one phase of life to the next will be marked not by the flip of a tassel during a triumphant walk across a stage but by the virtual conferring of degrees online. Because we cannot gather together, the University has planned system wide virtual celebrations this upcoming Sat, May 16, with the theme “Hail to Thee,” a reference from Minnesota’s state song chosen to reflect the University’s admiration for our graduates.
We are so #UMNProud of each and every one of them. They represent the passion, persistence and resilience that will be required of us all to ensure that the post-COVID world is better than the world that came before. So to the graduating class of 2020, we mourn with you for what is lost, celebrate with you in all you have achieved, and hope with you for what is to come. We see you.
I have found myself continually in awe of the innovation, creativity, and accomplishments of the entire University community during this challenging time. I encourage you to spend some time on the #UMNProud website. I am confident you will come away energized and moved by the stories you find there. As always, I hope you are following Northrop’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram social media channels for Daily Inspiration posts to keep you inspired and connected to the artists you have come to love through your experiences at Northrop!
I look forward with great anticipation to the day when we can throw open our doors and welcome you back in person. In the meantime, please stay safe, healthy, connected, and inspired.
Gratefully,
Kari Schloner
Director of Northrop