In just under a week, Quinnipiac University’s commencement ceremonies will be underway, celebrating both class of 2020 and class of 2021.
The class of 2021 ceremonies starts May 8, at 9 a.m. and concludes May 11, at 5 p.m.
Four days later, the class of 2020 ceremonies kicks off on May 15, at 9 a.m. and finishes at 5 p.m. that same day.
The full commencement schedule can be found here:
Karla Natale, associate vice president for university events and community partnerships, said planning for in-person ceremonies meant constantly monitoring the health situation and state guidelines.
“We also discussed plans with both our COVID task force and management committee to develop the safest plan for our graduates, families, faculty and staff,” Natale said.
With the recent shift to yellow alert status on April 27, Dr. David Hill, senior medical adviser, said the way commencement ceremonies will operate will remain the same.
“We’re hoping if our testing can be less, the positivity rate less this week coming up, we can switch to green,” Hill said. “But we were planning to do the same as we were because we have built in a more conservative campus alert level into our commencement so that we are distancing.”
Both Hill and Natale said student chairs will be separated six-feet apart and guests will be seated in “pods” of two seats that are six-feet apart from other pods on the Quad. Students can only register up to two guests due to COVID-19 health considerations.
“Everybody will be wearing masks and it is outdoors so there’s no human contact,” Hill said. “The shaking of hands and things like that. Students will just pass (their school’s dean) and get their diplomas.”
Hill said that unless something happens this upcoming week, which is not expected, commencement will go on as planned.
Amid the preparations for graduation is the construction toward the recreation and wellness project. Sal Filardi, vice president for facilities and capital planning, said it is in the middle of a three-year schedule with its completion planned for fall of 2022.
“The actual starts of different phases of the project are coordinated with the start of the academic year (fall of 2022) and not with other campus activities like commencement,” Filardi said. “Additionally, the work at the site should have no tangible impact on commencement ceremonies or any other campus activities,” he added.
Filardi said delaying this project for commencement will delay it by an entire month.
“That delay could cause issues by pushing some of the construction completion into winter months which may further delay the project,” he said.
With the commencement ceremonies taking place soon, all undergraduates who are participating in a ceremony must be aware that they must get a PCR COVID-19 test within five days of their commencement ceremony. Remote students who are attending commencement in-person must also have a confirmation of a negative COVID-19 PCR test no more than five days before their commencement ceremony. Graduate students, however, must take a PCR test if they are selected during the random sampling of graduate students.
Students who test positive or are contact traced at the time of their commencement must attend commencement virtually. Natale said students should be on the lookout for an email with additional information about accessing the virtual ceremony platform.