Hudson Valley Community College is holding an online 66th Commencement celebration to honor the Class of 2020 in response to coronavirus pandemic restrictions that prohibit large, in-person gatherings.
Please visit www.hvcc.edu/commencement where Commencement will be streamed beginning at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 6 to help congratulate the nearly 1,800 students who are receiving a degree or certificate. The celebration will run about one hour.
A highlight of the event will be a special message for the Class of 2020 from Alice Walker, an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she wrote the novel “The Color Purple,” for which she earned a National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Also among those who will address the graduates are President Roger Ramsammy, United States Senator Charles Schumer; Neil Kelleher, Board of Trustees chairman; WTEN News Anchor John Gray ’83; Student Senate President Zion Sherin ’20, and Professor Jeff Schoonmaker, who retired in May 2020 after 51 years of teaching physics at Hudson Valley.
American Idol finalist Madison VanDenburg will sing “The Star Spangled Banner” to open the celebration, as well as perform at the close of the event. Profiles of graduates and greetings from faculty and staff will be interspersed throughout the program. The Student Choir also will perform.
The program will include a ceremonial conferral of degrees by President Ramsammy and Judith DiLorenzo, vice president for Academic Affairs.
All faculty, staff and students are encouraged to “join” the festivities to show their support of the Class of 2020, whose final semester was unlike any other in the history of the college!
Published: Mon, 01 Jun 2020 12:15:27 +0000 by d.gardner