Rutgers cancels commencement on campus for second straight year
Decision marks the second year that the university has opted to hold its graduation events on-line.
Rutgers cancels commencement on campus for second straight year
- Thread starter Tango Two
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I agree, but with the financial hit universities have taken they may just view them as a money hole, especially with how much they shell out for commencement speakers.
Rutgers Spring Commencement Ceremonies Will Be Held Virtually
www.tapinto.net
Rutgers Spring Commencement Ceremonies Will Be Held Virtually
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – Rutgers has decided to host commencement events across the university this year virtually.
Dumb? We’re in the middle of a freaking pandemic and you think this decision is dumb. Nah, you’re dumb.
dumb to make this decision 3 months before the scheduled ceremony
Just stay under your bed forever. The rest of us would like the freedom to make personal choices.
I know people who’ve died from covid, you jackass. Keep being stupid.
my condolences..i do too.
It’s still dumb to cancel this 3 months prior when situation is rapidly improving
Rapidly improving, but can turn in an instant. This isn’t the time to loosen things up.
and when/if it turns..that’s when you cancel.
cant every aspect of life “turn in an instant”?
Socially distant. Just parents (or two people). Spread it out...one school a day.
It can be done.
It can be done.
It takes *months* to organize commencement. And while the numbers look good right now,, we still have to worry about the variants that are more contagious and (at least in one case) more virulent. Parents and students like commencement, of course, but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't happen.
Clear you have no clue how long it takes to plan and organize a commencement exercise. The campus I worked on was a fraction of the size of RU and we were well into detailed planning 3 months out.
Makes even less sense then.
they’ve already been planning and have been planning for so long..why cancel now? Plummeting cases, increasing vaxes, warmer weather. If these things don’t make it safe, when will it be safe?
There's a lot of planning that goes into the last three months before commencement. Your complaints are without merit.
No they aren’t. You can still plan and discuss what can happen.
If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.
This isn’t like planning for the 250th with a sitting President as your commencement speaker.
You have multiple venues to use for social distancing and weather.
If the concern is COVID-19 you can have smaller ceremonies for each school.
That’s what a plan is, options....”We are planning to have some sort of commencement but as of right now there are no guarantees this will happen. We will have to see as we move along if it is safely possible to do this. Thank you for your patience in this matter.”
You are wrong in implying that the science is against what Rutgers is doing. There is no way the United States is going to have herd immunity by commencement. Not enough people will have been vaccinated to do that, even if the vaccination program works out as planned. And that is discounting the possibility that one or more variants (and there will probably be more) resists the vaccine. Any commencement -- a University-wide one or one by schools -- is going to be a super-spreader event. There is no point going forward with planning because it is impossible that the pandemic will be over by then. Talk to any reputable scientist in the health sciences, and he/she will tell you the same thing.
so you’re opinion is no big events until the pandemic is over?
I’ve been arguing against this forever as I don’t see an end to the coronavirus.
No big events until the numbers are so low, the danger is minimal. The virus may never be fully eradicated, but it will eventually be weakened to flu-like status. Herd immunity, if it even happens, wouldn’t take place until this fall or following winter.
It's a matter of judgment. At a minimum, you'd want herd immunity, accompanied by a long and steady decline in cases to a *very* low level, in combination with the variants (the present ones and the ones that come along) not being a substantial problem.
Yes, it's a slippery slope, as lawyers say. But the fact that judgment is needed does not imply that one judgment is as good as another.
is there any evidence the variants today are any bigger of a problem than the variants in 2020?
The problem is a simple liability one. God forbid it becomes a super spreader event, we're in trouble. You know the media would be salivating about something like that happening here.
I think we'll be in a much better place in May. Are we going to be in place where there's enough vaccinated attendees to make it worthwhile? I wish but I don't foresee it.
There is no problem or liability for planning.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. - Ben Franklin
Considering the money involved it seems like that's not true.
If you have evidence things will be much more normal by May I'd like to see it....better yet pass it along to your pals on Beacon Blvd to start their handwringing on Ubers 😎
"Planning" costs money and takes up resources. Why do that for an event that is certain not to happen? And what alternative do you see? As I said, it wouldn't even work to decentralize commencement by having schools do it; you'd still have superspreader events.
Yes. Read the newspaper or watch TV news. The three variants that came from abroad this year appear to be more contagious and possibly more virulent than last year's strain.
there’s no real world evidence they are.
If there was evidence it wouldn’t “appear to be”...it woukd “be”.
It’s a budgetary item for an event that happens every year. Not like this is something brand new.
Doesn’t happen, money saved.
But to just give up and not even think or talk about of an alternative?
Rutgers virtual commencement decision criticized by students, parents
Rutgers virtual commencement decision criticized by students, parents
Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway announced Thursday that due to the ongoing pandemic, all 2021 commencements will be virtual again this year.
www.mycentraljersey.com
We are in an evolving situation, and it is not completely clear what will happen. The key question is, " what should we do in the face of uncertainty?"" I think you would agree that, with many lives at stake, it makes sense to adopt "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" Of course we shouldn't go crazy doing it; there is some level of risk we all have to live with. But with nearly half a million dead, we are confronted with an unacceptable risk of harm to Americans. That's why we have to have a preventive strategy instead of hoping against the evidence that the virus will "magically" (to quote you know who) go away.
By the way, your first sentence is factually wrong. Like I say, read a newspaper or watch the TV news. We know there are variants and we know they are adding to transmission. I don't see how you can deny that.
