Stuff Digital Edition

Uncertainty sees uni graduations cancelled

Lee Kenny

University of Canterbury (UC) has cancelled its graduation ceremonies due to Covid-19 uncertainty, just over three weeks before they were due to take place.

Some 2000 students were expecting to graduate between December 15-17, but they will now have to defer until April or receive their qualification by post, or from student services.

In October, UC said the graduation ceremonies would be cancelled if Christchurch did not reach alert level 1 by November 15.

After consultation with Venues O¯ tautahi – which manages five of Christchurch City Council’s event spaces – UC’s graduation ceremonies were changed from Christchurch Town Hall to Christchurch Arena, to allow for social distancing.

But on Monday students and families were emailed to say the graduations had been cancelled.

‘‘Even the strongest plans are no match for the unknown, which includes the opening of Auckland’s borders, the recent community cases in Christchurch, and the scarcity of guidance around incoming Covid-19 restrictions,’’ the university said.

Among the disappointed parents was Penny Pearce whose daughter Poppy was due to graduate with a BA in English and art history.

She will now graduate in absentia and ‘‘was really disappointed’’, said Pearce.

The ceremony is a ‘‘once in a lifetime’’ occasion for students and the university ‘‘could have made more of an effort’’, she said. ‘‘They were going to decide on the 15th of November, and they said it was going ahead in a modified way.’’

Pearce, who has three children, wrote to UC to express her concerns, but after an email exchange was told ‘‘further correspondence on this matter will not be responded to’’.

‘‘I never expected they were going to change their minds, but I did expect them to enter some dialogue on some better reasons behind it,’’ she said.

After multiple alert level lockdowns over the past two years, many of the students have had ‘‘lectures in their bedrooms’’.

‘‘It is significant for young people, because they actually have suffered a lot during all of this. Lots of schools have run their prize-givings online and that would have been fine.’’

News

en-nz

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281724092821440

Stuff Limited