The end of 2020 also marked the end of a semester at Madison College, and while this last semester had its challenges, 893 students rose to the challenge and were eligible to graduate this past December. Of the 893 students eligible, 279 participated in the graduation ceremony which took place virtually on Dec. 17 at 6:30 p.m.

The Student Life department, along with many others, were the ones overseeing and directing the virtual graduation ceremony. “It is really a team effort with a number of other departments involved including Marketing,” said Director of Student Life Renee Alfano.

Putting together a virtual graduation ceremony comes with its own set of unique challenges as compared to a regular, in-person ceremony. “It’s always a little nerve-wracking because you never know if things will work out right, but everything worked fine and the ceremony went well, technology worked well, everything went smoothly,” said Alfano.

Student Life utilized MarchingOrder, a company that puts together graduation slideshows, and had staff member Anna Purnell read the names of the graduates using the college’s radio station equipment.

After that was completed, the slideshow was sent off to be captioned. “That’s probably the part that if anything were to go wrong, it’s going to be right there because we have to do that in a matter of three days, but it all went well and it all worked out.”

Even though the graduation was not in-person, students who wanted one still received their caps and gowns to celebrate the occasion.

“Even though it’s not ideal for the graduates, our goal is to always try and make it special for them and so we want to really try to do the best job that we can because there are family members and friends that may be watching,” said Alfano.

“Some students have even said that this was their first time participating in a graduation due to life’s circumstances not allowing them to participate in previous ceremonies, so we just wanted to make it special even though it may be more difficult to do online, it’s what we have right now.”

The ceremony began with speeches by Madison College President Dr. Jack Daniels III and Madison College District Board of Trustees Chair Francis M. Huntley-Cooper. The ceremony then continued with a speech by the student speaker, Alfreeda Davidson, who graduated from the nursing program, and a slideshow of all the graduates who chose to take part. Each graduate had a slide with their name, program, a message and a photo if they chose to include one.

The virtual graduation ceremony and program is still available for viewing on Madison College’s website found here at https://madisoncollege.edu/graduation-ceremony.