The Class of 2020: It Was the Best of Times? No, It Really Was!

As a higher education change agent and advocate, I appreciate that, in these times of disruption, perhaps there is no one more deeply impacted in the education sector than the Class of 2020, whether they are "graduating" in any of the following categories: kindergarteners, 8th graders, 12th graders, college seniors, or graduate|professional students who are earning their colored stoles or even the most coveted doctoral hood and robe. 

My daughter, Bailey, is a member of this historic community, as a Class of 2020 graduate in Health Studies, with Honors, from THE Texas Southern University. But her story is not just about a delayed commencement, cancelled athletic banquet, unrealized final semester on campus antics, or simply one last hurried stroll to class. Rather, this journey is the culmination of supplemental tutoring, psychometric testing, learning disability diagnoses, behavior modification plans, parent teacher conferences, questions by experts of her ability to even complete high school, passionate teachers and advocates, coaches and peers who contributed to the actualization of this milestone that is significant for the most academic of us, let alone those with documented learning differences. Her completion of college, itself, is a disruption of the norm, the expected, and a shattering of labels and boundaries she never asked for, but rose above regardless.

How has the higher education community at large responded for the Class of 2020? We've seen it on social media, the neighborhood car parades and lawn signs from well-wishers and college faculty and administrators; the Zoom "grad parties," connecting family and friends both near and far. Chancellors have pre-recorded their speeches; famous alums have been able to leverage technology to recognize their alma mater when they might not have otherwise been able to or had the time. We've had to, collectively, employ those 21st century workforce skills we always lecture about -agility, creativity, and innovation - to respond to the disruption. Together, we've made history, redefining what it means to cross the higher education finish line for whichever credential or degree it is that commands acknowledgment and celebration. It takes a village, we've said all along, and indeed, we've got ample evidence to support what a strong and solidified village we are.

But challenges remain and larger questions await us: Will we transition back to whatever normal commencement looks like again, when our traditional expectations of pomp and circumstance can safely return to the common vernacular? Have we, instead, achieved a paradigm shift, a collective call to propel forward and truly embrace all that the digital age has provided us with as a means of just as valuable engagement, celebration, and access? Is there a happy medium, a new way of doing business, that beckons a measured and hybrid approach, dismantling the idea that virtual engagement is not as meaningful and real value is measured by cost and convention? 

As a parent and a higher education administrator, I recognize the need for change. I embrace the importance of leveraging technology, of finding ways to sound the digital air horn, dispense the cyber confetti, to dazzle and customize the grad cap and to commemorate the moving of the tassel from right to left. (After 20 years in higher education, I had to Google that to make sure I had the sequence correct!) But I still long for the faint hope of a world in which those rites of passage occur in person, the familiar lure of shifting uncomfortably in the auditorium seating, as babies cry, graduates take selfies next to their classmates, proud siblings hoist homemade congratulatory signs, and academics ramble just a little too long at the podium (of which we are all guilty).

Who knows what the future commencements of the next chapter in higher education will entail. Likely, there will be a blend of some things, old, and some things, new. But I can guarantee you, whatever happens, we'll all savor every second of the sounds, the sights, the showcase of our students enjoying that hard-earned walk across the stage, lifting up the empty diploma cover, and waving it for all to see with pride.

The stage, the script, the sequence of the ceremony are all in flux, but what we must commit to maintaining is the value of that diploma, the real-world relevance of the rights and privileges it bestows, and the transferability of the competencies we guarantee within the degree requirements. That is something over which we, as higher education advocates and visionaries, not only have control, but alas, also, have an ethical responsibility to uphold. We've got more barriers to break down in that regard and I know of one member of the Class of 2020 who reminds me daily that labels, boundaries and expectations are all meant to be exceeded. So, what are we waiting for? The digital fog horn has sounded - let's get to work and redefine the next chapter together!

And, last but not least, there's a tradition that will defy the ages. My daughter indulged me with a first and last day of "school" photo. Some traditions are simply timeless.