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At Long Last

The Class of 2020 returns for a three-dimensional graduation celebration

Por Bates College

09 de June de 2022

Excitement and Pride

Is it possible to commence when one has already commenced?

In March 2020, as COVID-19 barreled into Maine, the Bates campus shut down, and students finished the year remotely. A short time later, President Clayton Spencer announced more disappointing news: Commencement would be fully virtual for the Class of 2020. An in-person celebration would have to wait.

They waited and waited, 812 days. But then on Day 813 — June 4, 2022 — the Class of 2020 got its in-person celebration, their moment to cross the Coram Library porch before family and friends and receive the college’s full congratulations “in three dimensions,” as Spencer said in her welcome.

In normal times, Spencer said, “Commencement is a day of joy and pride, as it is today, but also a day of poignancy, when you say goodbye to the dailiness of life with your closest friends of the past four years, many of whom will turn out to be some of the best friends you’ll have in life."

“This graduation celebration, by contrast, is more reunion than leave-taking. It is a time of coming back together, not being torn apart. I hope that you are feeling the sweetness of seeing old friends and familiar faces in the place where you went through so much together.”

Around 285 of the 463 graduates of the Class of 2020 took part in the celebration.

With considerable glee and gusto, the young alums veritably danced across the stage. Seated with friends in the audience rather than alphabetically, they arrived in a chain of friendship and love. Each alum crossed the porch, accepted congratulations from Spencer, and then often would wait for a friend (or two or four) for a portrait from the waiting photographer.

Arrival

Guests began arriving on the Historic Quad as early as 8:30 a.m. to find seats and connect with others. Members of the Class of 2020 began to gather outside of Commons before heading over to Garcelon Field for their Class Photo, scheduled for 11 a.m.

The Class Portrait

Members of the Class of 2020 gathered promptly at 10:15 a.m. to get into formation for their official class photo taken on Garcelon Field.

Lining Up

The celebrants moved onto Alumni Walk, where they and members of the faculty and staff lined up for the Graduation Ceremony Processional.

The Procession

Led by the college’s new mace bearer, Professor of French and Francophone Studies Mary Rice-DeFosse, the procession moved onto the Historic Quad, passed by the Peter J. Gomes Chapel and Hathorn Hall, then moved through an enthusiastic gathering of parents, family, and friends.

Welcome

To the question of whether one can commence against — recommence? — Spencer spoke to that in her remarks, quipping that “coming to graduation after you’ve been out of college for a few years is a little like going to class when you’ve actually done the reading.”

Spencer told the young alumni to be easy on themselves, to view life in their 20s as a “formless” decade. “If you’re here today, feeling like you don’t know exactly where you’re headed, don’t worry. Embrace the freedom you have to keep trying things.” Recalling her own 20s, Spencer asked the students to be OK with the fact “that there will be moments of profound doubt, uncertainty, and loneliness.”

The accomplished people we know seem to own a “powerfully coherent, even inevitable” story line, she said. But more often than not, they were a “mess” early on, especially in their 20s,” she said. Their path to today was “squiggly.”

“When faced with the murkiness of the path ahead of you, the challenge is to keep yourself from panicking and grabbing onto some job, some schooling, some something just to give yourself a snappy answer at Thanksgiving when your uncle asks you what you’re doing these days. Trust me: You do not want to settle for premature clarity at the expense of genuine fulfillment, which is different for every person and can take a long time to find.”

Her advice? When questioning the direction of your life, ask the right question about. Tempting as it is, asking “What should I do with my life?” won’t help; it’s “downright paralyzing.”

Rather, ask a simpler question, “Is this thing I’m considering doing a plausible next step for me?” And if it does feel right, then you may commence.

Graduate Address

In May 2020, Alexandria C. Onuoha ’20 was the senior speaker, and her prerecorded address was presented during the virtual Commencement. She reprised her role in 2022, but with a new speech.

In her updated talk, Onuoha focused on “homeplace,” a concept developed by writer and activist bell hooks. Homeplace is where, said Onuoha, where “one can find rest, hope, and be in community with others...This can be a loved one or an actual place in which one finds safety and comfort.”

Thinking about her life after Bates, she said, “I realized that Bates was still very much a part of it. When we graduated, I think many of us, including myself, had an idea that this is a fresh, new chapter, which it is, but when you graduate Bates you also take Bates with you, because the students at Bates, many of you, are my homeplace.”

This time, Onuoha’s mom got to hear her daughter’s talk in person. “And may I remind you," Onuoha told the audience, using a line from her 2020 address, that “she is still telling me, ‘Stay strong, and walk and act like you got some sense.’”

Recognition of the Members of the Class of 2020

Members of the Class of 2020 crossed the stage to receive a Bates-embossed legal pad, provided by the Bates Center for Purposeful Work, in lieu of their diplomas that were mailed to them after their virtual graduation ceremony in May 2020.

Time for Their Photographs

Sometimes solo, sometimes with friends, the young alumni stopped for "official" portraits as they left the Coram porch.

In Recognition

Carrying their legal pads, members of the Class of 2020 returned to their seats and to cheers and congratulations from classmates.

From Left to Right

“Technically you have been entitled to wear your tassels on the left since your degrees were conferred two years ago," Spencer said. “But lest there be any doubt as to your official status as college graduates: Would you please move your tassel from right to left?”

Recessional

How strange, said the Rev. Brittany Longsdorft, the college’s multifaith chaplain, to be offering a benediction — a closing blessing for something that has ended — for something that has already begun. “So instead of a benediction, I offer you a traveler’s blessing for your constant and continued journey.”

Employing the metaphor of a bee, she blessed the Class of 2020:

May there be constant gentle winds under your earnest wings.

May you grow in community and connection wherever you go.

May you always find each other to share joy and the honeyed moments of life.

May you know Bates as a home, a hive you can always return to for restoration and reconnection in all the days to come.

Then, with mortarboards — and lots of energy — released, the recession began with the platform party departing the stage, followed by faculty and the members of the Class of 2022, who, led by their class marshals, greeted their professors, some of whom they never had a chance to say goodbye to when the college closed on Friday, March 13, 2020, due to to the pandemic.