My college experience has been a wild ride, but the biggest setback was the realization that UW is more focused on making money than taking care of its teachers, staff and students. In my opinion, the decision to have a virtual commencement ceremony was the last nail in the coffin.
When the pandemic reared up a year ago, and campus was shut down, I felt deeply for the graduates who couldn’t walk across the stage due to the onslaught of the virus. Then again in December when numbers were still rising, and now it’s the class of 2021’s turn, despite the fact that there is a plateau in terms of COVID-19.
Shaking hands and receiving an empty folder has never been of upmost importance to me. The fact that I’m the first person in my family to complete a college education is the driving factor behind my anger.
This doesn’t only apply to me, and it definitely doesn’t mean that other graduates who aren’t first generation are less important.
According to Wyoming Department of Health, COVID-19 numbers are declining. While there are still new cases, the graphs show the data clearly.
However, despite the numbers, UW says the decision to have virtual commencement is based on “continuing concerns about large gatherings and travel related to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The travel concern is incredibly valid, considering many people would have to fly. In order to properly quarantine, they would need to plan longer trips and longer stays.
However, the concern over large gatherings is what strikes me as incredibly hypocritical considering there were football games last semester. There are so many options to combat this for a graduation ceremony.
The idea that I’ve discussed with my friends and coworkers is splitting commencement into many shorter ceremonies by degree rather than college. This would mean that the events could be spread out, sanitization could be done in between ceremonies, and the crowds could be limited to smaller sizes.
The fact that UW doesn’t want to even consider an in-person ceremony comes down to losing money. While discussing this with my mom, she said, “Graduation signifies losing money because people are leaving, but they’ve allowed football games because it’s revenue for them.”
Over the past year, UW has done multiple things in order to save or make money. This includes the batch testing system rather than using single tests, athletic events, budget cuts to departments and raising tuition even though students can’t use all the amenities on campus.
While some of this is normal, such as slightly raising tuition every year, it makes me wonder if UW is actually worried about the graduates safety or if they truly don’t want to make the effort because it would cost too much.
At the end of the day, other graduates and myself have worked countless hours, taken out loans and put our nose to the grindstone for this moment, and UW won’t even consider another option.
In the 2018 “The World Needs More Cowboys” video, we ask, “When did we stop thinking up new questions and daring to chase down their answers?
“The world needs more outside thinkers, hungry for a challenge. The world needs more cowboys.”
UW is refusing to think outside the box in order to give the class of 2021 the moment we’ve waited years for.
