Students who have identified as multi-ethnic in the graduating senior class have a ceremony scheduled for Wednesday, May 11, 2022. Due to scheduling conflicts and decisions made by senior week planning committees, Multi-Ethnic Graduation has been moved from Thursday as seen in years past. 

Students who have been invited to this event have voiced complaints about families not being able to attend since the event occurs early in the week as opposed to closer to commencement. For many multi-ethnic students, this event holds a larger precedence over other senior events such as senior formal. To ensure that all family members are able to attend this ceremony, we are pushing to move Multi-Ethnic Graduation to Thursday, May 12, 2022 at a time before senior formal. We are aware that many students will want to be in attendance at senior formal, and we suggest that the times selected for each event do not conflict with one another. It is unfair that the Multi-Ethnic Graduation Ceremony is also on the same day as 6 other senior events while senior formal is the only event taking place on Thursday. It is unfair to assume that all families and friends can arrive in the South Bend area as early as Wednesday for commencement ceremonies. It is also to our knowledge that this event will not have the option of being virtually streamed for friends and family who will not be in attendance to watch from home. We are petitioning to change the date by just one day and hope that you will sign in agreement with us even if it does not impact you directly.

Each multi-ethnic student has worked extremely hard for four years to be recognized at a predominantly white institution and push for this change because it is important to us for our families and friends to be in attendance at one of our most favored senior ceremonies.