Sonoma State University (SSU) let Seawolves know via email early February that 2020 and 2021 graduates that were slated to walk will be celebrated with a hybrid drive-thru commencement. After the announcement of the hybrid drive-thru commencement celebration, a petition was made by SSU students, so that graduates could celebrate a normal graduation commencement and walk in-person.
The petition to have an in-person graduation commencement has gained major traction since it began, being spread online and on social media. Seawolves are encouraged by the creators of this petition to sign it, then send it to at least five of your close family members or friends, and then have your close friends send it to at least five people. With graduation for seniors coming up on May 22 and May 23, this is a time sensitive matter for the creators who are hoping the Commencement Committee will respond as possible to the students’ requests with a decision.
Katherine Breeher, SSU Student and front desk Team Member, was one of two students to independently organize the petition. Saba Rashid was the other student that helped put together the petition.
Rashid said, “I think students should be able to have a proper commencement ceremony because this is something that each student has been working towards for the entirety of their college career.”
Rashid continued to talk about the inconvenience SSU is bringing to its students with the drive-thru commencement ceremony. She said, “Personally I find it to be a waste to travel to Sonoma State with my family for a drive thru ceremony and I don’t live extremely far from campus, I can only imagine how students in Southern California or farther away are feeling about it.”
Saba finished her statement by saying, “I think something that is extremely important to highlight is that we’ve gotten such a great response so quickly, which shows that enough students care to have a proper commencement ceremony. All we need and can hope for is Judy [Sakaki] to approve of it- which I am wary about.”
Breeher, the second SSU student to create the petition said, “We want to completely explain our position and the circumstances around which we believe what we are asking for is reasonable. Everything that is on our list of requests are guidelines that would be approved by a county located in the orange tier like Sonoma County and are very similar or exactly the same to what other California State Universities are doing.”
“I saw that Fresno State was in a similar situation in March. They’d announced graduation would be virtual, students were upset and created a petition, and got over 2000 signatures and their admin changed the plans to in person within the same month. That gave me a lot of motivation to believe we at SSU could do the same”. Breeher continued to say, “We feel like our senior year has been very isolating and difficult, and the drive-thru plan as it is now only reflects this isolation. The drive thru commencement plan was made when Sonoma county was still in the purple tier and it seems to us that the plan was not reevaluated at all since then, despite the drastic change in Sonoma County’s positive covid cases and vaccination rates”.
Breeher also mentioned that the vaccine is being widely spread throughout Sonoma Country right now. Sonoma State is also in its orange tier for the pandemic, and its COVID-19 related cases have slowly been decreasing. Breeher went on to say, “Our Green Music Center’s lawn is a very large outdoor space that would be perfect for the type of ceremony we’re asking for.”
A list of requests was also added to go along with the petition. The creators are requesting the ceremony takes place on the Green Music Centers lawn, where there is plenty of space to properly distance to adhere to COVID-19 related rules. Another request is the ceremony be split up by undergraduate school groups, so it’s not too crowded at any one time. In order to keep the event safe, an additional request for guests and staff to wear masks has also been asked, along with showing a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of the commencement. Lastly, there’s a request to have signed up for the event by April 21 to be able to attend, and to have hand sanitizer and bathrooms available for all attendees.
The organizers feel their requests are reasonable, and are still waiting on a response from the University. So far, the petition has over 1,000 signatures.
To learn more about this petition, students are welcome to head over to the Operation Grad Instagram, @operationgrad, where students can get more information on the petition itself.
