Student Union
- By Ashlyn Peter
Class of 2020 Faces Vanishing Finish Line
We have separated so we can come together.
Not since the influenza pandemic in 1918 have Americans been asked to self-isolate as a country in order to help each other. And perhaps not since then has a group of university students been forced to disrupt their final months of college because of a pandemic.
Coming together is what will get last-semester seniors through a college experience that has no definitive resolution. We've been asked to move back in with our parents. Classes have been moved online and graduation ceremonies have been canceled.
Our final moments at college are being reshaped by a global event, but so were our first months. We were the class upset over Donald Trump's presidency. We were still freshmen when sexual and racial violence made national headlines. Some of us cried, but we also embraced. Amid the uncertainty, we were there for each other.
Imagine how the graduates of 2008 felt. They walked off the commencement stage and into the Great Recession. They couldn't know what awaited them — they just had to take the leap.
That's what we must do now.
We've spent the past four years hoping that our time in college would give us the knowledge, the work ethic and the determination needed to take on the rest of our lives. That hope got some of us on planes, traveling overseas for the first time, and learning about the world outside of our campuses.
As students at American University in Washington, D.C., it carried us to Capitol Hill, where we became history makers, small or large. It let us take part in public displays of hope, from the Women's March to the March for Our Lives. We've screamed in the center of the quad together at midnight before final exams. We've nodded from across crowded Metro cars while going to our respective internships.
We love to debate our preference for Georgetown Cupcakes or Baked and Wired as much as we like to debate politics.
This is the time in the school year when seniors search for jobs or prepare for graduate school. Many workplaces, however, have enacted a hiring freeze. Health experts say that the virus could return in the fall, like in 1918, potentially halting university operations again.
Everything is up in the air, even our long-awaited commencement ceremony that once seemed so fixed and unmoving. It's hard to watch the finish line disappear just as we approach it.
The one benefit in all of this is that we now have an abundance of time to reflect on the time we did have here. We all accomplished something great for ourselves and for our families. Some of us are first-generation graduates or the first of our community to travel outside the country. Some of us published research papers in renowned journals or had a hand in passing important bills.
In our time of mass isolation, we must remember that we are still united. We still experienced the nightlife together, and drank coffee together at the same places, and found $20 Tuesdays at the local tattoo parlor.
Amid crises, we are the change-makers, the self-starters, the creative geniuses, the leaders, the wonks.
We are not the class of tragedy, but the class of resilience. We are the class that comes together, even when we're forced apart.
Ashlyn Peter is a senior at American University School of Communication in Washington, D.C.
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Protests dwindle to tiny numbers, subtle defiant acts at US college graduations
A tiny contingent of Duke University graduates opposed pro-Israel comedian Jerry Seinfeld speaking at their commencement in North Carolina Sunday, with about 30 of the 7,000 students leaving their seats and chanting "free Palestine" amid a mix of boos and cheers.
Some waved the red, green, black and white Palestinian flag. Seinfeld, whose decade-long namesake show became one of the most popular in U.S. television history and who continues to draw legions of fans to his Netflix specials and TV appearances such as "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," was there to receive an honorary doctorate from the university.
"After spending four years at what is considered one of the finest institutions of higher education in the world, they apparently feel that perhaps some light entertainment will get you all to the final realization, 'You know, I think I've really had enough of this place,'" Seinfeld said.
The stand-up turned actor and recent star, director and co-writer of the movie "Unfrosted," has publicly supported Israel since it invaded Gaza to dismantle Hamas after the organization attacked the country and killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The ensuing war has killed nearly 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Students at campuses across the U.S. responded this spring by setting up encampments and calling for their schools to cut ties with Israel and businesses that support it. Students and others on campuses whom law enforcement authorities have identified as outside agitators have taken part in the protests from Columbia University in New York City to UCLA.
At the University of California, Berkeley, on Saturday, a small group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators waved flags and chanted during commencement and were escorted to the back of the stadium, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. There were no major counterprotests, but some attendees voiced frustration.
"I feel like they're ruining it for those of us who paid for tickets and came to show our pride for our graduates," said Annie Ramos, whose daughter is a student. "There's a time and a place, and this is not it."
The small student protest Sunday at Duke's graduation in Durham, North Carolina, was emblematic of campus events across the U.S. Sunday after weeks of student protests roiled U.S. campuses in recent weeks and resulted in nearly 2,900 arrests at 57 colleges and universities.
This weekend's commencement events remained largely peaceful.
At Emerson College in Boston, some students took off their graduation robes and left them on stage. Others emblazoned "free Palestine" on their mortar boards. One woman, staring at a camera broadcasting a livestream to the public, unzipped her robe to show a kaffiyeh, the black and white checkered scarf commonly worn by Palestinians, and flashed a watermelon painted on her hand. Both are symbols of solidarity with those living in the occupied territories.
Others displayed messages for a camera situated on stage, but the livestream quickly shifted to a different view, preventing them from being seen for long. Chants during some of the speeches were difficult to decipher.
Protests at Columbia University, where student uprisings inspired others at campuses across the country, led the school to cancel its main graduation ceremony in favor of smaller gatherings.
The University of Southern California told its valedictorian, who publicly backed Palestinians, that she could not deliver her keynote speech at its graduation ceremony because of security concerns. It later canceled its main graduation ceremony.
At Depaul University in Chicago, graduation is more than a month away. But as the academic year closes, school leaders said they had reached an "impasse" with the school's pro-Palestinian protesters, leaving the future of their encampment on the Chicago campus unclear.
The student-led DePaul Divestment Coalition, which is calling on the university to divest from economic interests tied to Israel, set up the encampment nearly two weeks ago. The group alleged university officials walked away from talks and tried to force students into signing an agreement, according to a student statement late Saturday.
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US college students face muted graduations amid Gaza war protests
Commencement ceremonies are being scaled back or canceled at U.S. universities because of security concerns over pro-Palestinian student protests. While some campus demonstrations have resulted in concessions, others have led to violent confrontations. VOA’s Tina Trinh has the story from New York.
