There are just under 2,000 residential students living on Lindenwood University's campus during this Fall semester of 2020. This does not include the hundreds of commuter students, staff, and faculty members on campus and interacting with residential students each and every day. Since mid July, there have been 139 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Lindenwood's campus. This number may seem high, but is not too high for Lindenwood to continue in person classes, host outside events on campus, and allow athletic teams to return to practices. 

With all of these allowed events on campus, it seems strange that Lindenwood is concerned about hosting multiple socially distanced events at the Saint Charles Family Arena. Saint Charles City and County COVID-19 guidelines and restrictions are incredibly laxed compared to other communities, and is allowing events to continue as previously scheduled at the Family Arena. 

Lindenwood may be concerned about space, but the Family Arena is fully equipped to handle larger socially distanced crowds, with a normal capacity of 12,000 seats. With Lindenwood previously planning to allow four guests per each graduate, there would be ample room to allow six feet of space between pods of families. 

Lindenwood may be concerned regarding the health of guests that may be in attendance at commencement ceremonies, but when Lindenwood had over 2,000 students move back to campus in August, not a single student was required to provide a negative COVID-19 test to prove their health and low risk to other students.

This shows that Lindenwood university cannot be claiming that commencement is being called off due to a health risk when they showed no care to student safety during the return to campus.

College graduation is such an important milestone in the lives of graduates and their families. Some families may never get to see another member of their family walk across that stage. With no plans to postpone graduation and allow for previous graduates to properly celebrate their commencement by crossing that stage, it is imperative that these students are allowed to do what they have waited years for this November. Students have spent thousands of dollars, and endless hours of work preparing for the rest of their lives and now they are being denied seeing their dreams come to fruition. 

Please reconsider this decision and put plans back in place to host a safe and effective graduation ceremony in November as previously planned.