The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford will honor 264 graduates during an online event on Sunday.
The university’s usual Commencement exercises in the KOA Arena with thousands of family and friends, as well as commencement at other colleges and universities across the country, have moved online since large gatherings are not possible during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Although we can’t be together to celebrate with our graduates face-to-face, we very much wanted to recognize their accomplishments in a way that they could share with their families,” said Dr. Catherine Koverola, president of Pitt-Bradford.
The event will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, when the in-person ceremony would have been held, on www.upb.pitt.edu/commencement, on the university’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/PittBradford/, and YouTube channel, uPittBradford.
To prepare for the online event, university officials mailed caps and gowns to graduates who had been planning to take part in the regular ceremony. All who graduated in December 2019 or will graduate in April or August have been encouraged to watch at home with their families.
The event itself will feature remarks by Koverola who also will confer their degrees, the moment when graduates receive their new status and can move their tassels from the right side of their cap to the left.
Lindsay Hilton Retchless, director of alumni relations, worked with others on campus to help design the event after speaking with seniors about what parts of the commencement ceremony were most important to them.
“The conferral of degrees was very important to the students,” Retchless said. “They wanted to all be doing something together at once.”
The event will also include a short recognition of each student and congratulations messages from faculty and staff.
Graduates are also encouraged to take part in a new tradition of decorating the graduation cap. The Pitt-Bradford Alumni Association is sponsoring a social media contest for students to show off caps with the possibility of earning prizes for the most panther pride, best major or career-specific design, most artistic, best pop culture reference and most inspirational.
Prizes will be announced during a virtual senior class happy hour to allow students to wish their classmates well.
This year’s online commencement is not intended to replace an in-person ceremony.
“When it is safe to do so,” Koverola said, “we will have an extraordinary commencement ceremony to celebrate our students’ achievements.”
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