Earlier today President Gregory sent out an email to the Benedictine community cancelling all in-person classes for the rest of the semester, as well as the Class of 2020 commencement ceremony scheduled for May 9, 2020.

With the growing concerns around the COVID-19 Pandemic, we as students understand the need to maintain social distancing, not only for our sakes, but for those around us. However, after all of the effort we’ve poured into our classes, and in bettering the Benedictine campus and community, we believe the administration owes us this much: to reconsider rescheduling graduation to a later period in the summer. We would much rather wait until September 2020 to walk, than have it cancelled altogether. Many of us have worked day in and day out to be able to walk across the stage in celebration of our accomplishments these past 4 years at Benedictine. For some of us in the class of 2020, we are either first generation college students, or first generation US citizens; this commencement ceremony symbolizes more than a mere sense of self-accomplishment; it’s also an embodiment of the sacrifices made by our family and friends. It is the moment many of our grandparents have been holding on for, waiting to see us in our caps and gowns walking across the stage with our heads held high in accomplishment.

Cancelling the commencement ceremony without considering other options, such as smaller ceremonies or postponing it in its entirety, is an insult to the hard work that has gotten each one of us through these past four years. In the haste of the response to COVID-19, the class of 2020 has already lost the opportunity for proper goodbyes to friends, professors, and the campus that has been our home away from home. Our athletes have lost their season. Students have lost internship opportunities, jobs, and any sense of normalcy and security due to this pandemic. Cancelling an event as essential and symbolic as graduation means as a community, we have chosen to give in and give up to the social symptoms of COVID-19: fear, panic and paranoia. Please don’t snuff the one candle of hope we hold against this pandemic. Please don't take graduation away from us, too.