The pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked college campuses in New York and across the country have left university administrators scrambling to potentially reshape their plans for upcoming graduation ceremonies — and hoping to avoid the need to cancel them altogether.
The unrest comes at a time when many graduating seniors already saw their high school commencement ceremonies either minimized or postponed four years ago when the COVID-19 pandemic stunted school activities. But so far, no New York universities have canceled their in-person ceremonies. That includes Columbia, the site of the original protest encampment, whose president said Monday that the school is “trying to make plans that we will indeed hold a Commencement.”
That’s in contrast to the University of Southern California, which canceled its main graduation ceremony that had been scheduled for next week.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, is making it clear she wants to keep it that way.
Speaking to reporters in Manhattan on Tuesday, Hochul noted many graduating seniors were robbed of their high school commencement four years ago by the pandemic.
“It is my expectation that every college and university in New York will celebrate commencement safely in person,” she wrote in a letter to every campus president in the state on Monday.
At Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus, students and faculty had mixed feelings about the future of the university’s commencement, currently scheduled for May 15.
Tejasri Vijayakumar, a senior who is student body president of Columbia College, said “a lot of students do want their parents to see them cross the stage and receive a diploma.”
“I know other students who are like, ‘I don’t care that much about a ceremony if it excludes my friends who have been arrested or suspended — or, like, if it’s from a university I don’t feel particularly proud of at the moment,’” she said.
In her statement Monday, Columbia President Minouche Shafik cited the upcoming ceremony as she pleaded with the students who have taken over part of the campus lawn with several dozen tents to “voluntarily disperse.”
That struck a nerve with some students and faculty members, who said they believe there are ways to accommodate both graduation and the ongoing protest.
“The administration has overplayed the role of graduation,” said Reinhold Martin, a professor who had been guarding the encampment. “There were ways to deal with this. There were ways to accommodate. … This is a very large campus.”
Jonathan Pabon, who is finishing up his doctoral degree, said he has two family members who applied for visas from Colombia to see him walk the stage.
“So the fact that that’s put in danger is unfortunate, makes me uncomfortable and I don’t like it,” he said. “But these students seem extremely passionate over what they’re doing.”
Pabon continued: “It just might be a consequence. … I’m still going to go to a bar and celebrate with my family afterwards.”
In her letter to campus presidents, Hochul said all students “have a right to finish their studies, take exams, and in the case of seniors, graduate with the ceremonies and recognition they and their families deserve.”
“Students and families who have worked hard and invested much for years should not be denied that opportunity as the result of the actions of others,” she wrote.
Hochul offered up her administration’s public safety and operations teams to “help advise on planning and best practices as you work to ensure in-person commencements can safely move forward.”
Alex Romero, a student protester in the Columbia encampment, said his “heart goes out to the graduating seniors.”
But he said if the commencement gets canceled, “it’s not because of the encampment.”
“We are not the ones canceling the graduation,” he said Monday. “The graduation can still happen if they met our demands. But I also think the graduation could still happen here, they would just have to do it somewhere else on campus.”