Columbia Class of 2028 Official RD Thread

citivas
Mon, 06 May 2024 20:38:16 +0000

Columbia is claiming there was a credible security threat that forced them to find another, more secure location and that they couldn’t find one available large enough for the full commencement.

Who knows, though I suspect it was more likely that they couldn’t figure out how to do it without the President losing face, either by having to not show for an event she is supposed to lead or by showing and having a mass of students and parents jeer or awkward silence her. They also likely would have had non-affiliate protesters outside the gates on either side of College Walk on Broadway and Amsterdam and both didn’t want that heckling during the event and didn’t want that optic as the parents arrived and departed.

There’s a petition circulating between students and parents to plead for them to change their minds and still hold commencement on campus, but it’s purely symbolic as there is zero chance of change at this point. It’s obvious the Administration decided to not hold graduation on campus at least 5 days ago (or sooner) when they abruptly stopped setting up for it (including never setting up on the former encampment lawn they allegedly needed to clear for that purpose). But they held off on an announcement as long as possible while they likely worked out the logistics where all the smaller class days are being held. To add insult to injury, they clearly intentionally leaked the news to the media hours before they send an email to students and parents so many people found out by reading article online before the university announcement. I have no idea who thought that was a good idea. My best SWAG is some insiders leaked it to score points with their media contacts.

Obviously most students and parents are upset. The class day events still happening are actually the better of the two ceremonies where each student walks up and gets a diploma. So if you had to keep one, it was the better one. But the main Commencement was the one with all the pageantry and drama. And having it on campus with Low and Alma Mater as the backdrop was part of the lure and lore.

There’s no trust in the Administration at this point, so many people suspect this was about face-saving more than a legit security threat. Even if there was a legit threat, they lost all credibility a while back so no one would have any basis to believe them now. It’s also sketchy that they stopped setting up almost a week ago but used the protection of the campus for graduation as their excuse for keeping most students locked out of campus since last week and for forcing finals to be virtual. So now it’s clear that was just an excuse. Most students haven’t even had access to the dining halls for their meal plans until this weekend and only limited access with less hours since then.