The University of Minnesota sent an email to the student body on Tuesday saying it will not host a typical ceremony to honor students graduating in 2023 for the third time in four springs.
The college said that due to planned renovations in the 3M Arena at Mariucci, there will only be two graduation ceremonies in the spring of 2023, one for all undergrads and one for all grad students.
Each is slated to be held at Huntington Bank Stadium in May.
In an email to CFANS students, the college's dean, Brian Buhr, said the joint ceremony won't include "individual students walking across the stage to have their name announced, receive a diploma or be hooded."
Joel Douglas is an outgoing master's student in the college of science and engineering, whose normal undergrad ceremony was also changed in 2021 because of COVID. He says that seeing it happen again is upsetting.
"Why does this have to happen to some of the people who really worked hard two years ago, and then they kind of didn't really get as special of a commencement then," Douglas said. "It's kind of soon to do it now again and not really have that experience."
While students still graduated in 2020 and 2021, despite the pandemic, ceremonies were moved online or held in some other fashion, leaving many in the graduating classes feeling empty, despite their achievements.
"My parents and older brother all got 'regular graduations' where their name was called and everything," Douglas said. "They felt kind of sad that I wasn't able to feel that same experience, I guess."
Now students are in for another mixup as the graduating class, because of size, won't walk across the stage individually as their name is announced, receive a diploma, or be hooded.
News Talk 830 WCCO has reached out for further information from the U and has not heard back.
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