01/05/2020
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Check out my story on how Covid-19 cancellations of graduation ceremonies has affected some of our minority graduates due to our unique history
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Graduation Ceremonies Being Canceled due to Covid-19 may Affect Minorities in a Unique Way
The idea of graduates this year not being able to participate in a celebration ceremony has been frustrating for most. Though these minority students, who attended Brigham Young University (BYU), feel the absence of their ceremony affected them in a different way. We invite you to listen to their stories as many other minority students, especially black students might have similar feelings. Consider their explanations to have a chance to understand what obtaining a higher education may mean to others who are not your average predominantly white students.
We hear from Rhonda Peck, who obtained her Juris Doctorate and Masters in education this semester. Rhonda belongs to many minority groups, she is a “Jewish, African American, Latter Day Saint women. She is the first of the Pecks to go to law school. Kamel Green achieved his third degree, a master’s in Business. He is a non-LDS, African American, and a former student athlete. He is the first in his immediate family to get a master’s degree. Adhieu is a Sudanese American, she came to America, young as a refugee from Sudan and plans to use her degree to continue her education and be able to serve back in Africa. This semester Adhieu has achieved her bachelor’s degree in public health. We also hear form Karman Kodia, a Congolese who is from Sweden, who is the 2nd in her family to be able to obtain a degree. This year she achieved her bachelor’s degree in News Media.
When BYU announced graduation was canceled it left these graduates with a hole in their hearts, especially being that it was canceled completely and not postponed.
Rhonda expressed her shock on the matter. “Okay, it's gone. Right? Like is just like, No, it was like this devastation or different things. And because of that, like I just forgot to do a lot of things that feel normal to me”.
Karmen Kodia was disappointed recounting on the fact that her parents “were unable to get a higher degree education like at a college level because they were immigrants from Congo and like they came to these to Sweden a bit later in life, now they had to learn a whole new language, so for them to see their kids succeed with their education it give them hope and they give them surety that like, our kids might be able to have a successful life and not successful and make money by like in education and knowledge and like in like societal, cultural and in skills you know”.
Adhieu feels it was not enough for her to just get a degree without being able to celebrate it. She stated “although I still have my degree, the graduation ceremony is like a steppingstone and something that I look forward to like, not just throughout my college career, but my whole life. I've always wanted to walk to get my diploma to shake hands with the dean”.
Being that Kamel has now achieved his masters he expresses how much more accomplished the higher degree made him feel, “It means a lot more the second time around just because I know I'm done. And I know I'm now transitioning to a more career focused path when it comes to jobs. When I received my bachelor's degree, I was going into a lot of entry levels. But I knew I was still going to go back to school”.
Rhonda also struggles with a learning disability, she explains how important this degree and ceremony was for her having “dyslexia, I was never projected to read past a fifth-grade level. And now I have a degree from a top 50 law school in the United States”.
Kamel also feels “My accomplishments are their accomplishment. So, it is highly, highly appreciative on behalf of my family”.
BYU Black Student Union began hosting a black graduation, for people of color where the are presented with kente strolls and get to come celebrate with the very few other black graduates each year. Rhonda was really looking forward to this ceremony as well, being that she would actually get to do something with her heritage after always feeling a bit different at BYU due to her background. She states “since last year when they held the first black graduation. I have been like, looking forward to that. Right? Because I've never been able to participate in something like that with my heritage before. And so, I was like, Oh, I'm going to get to do this and my brother's going to be able to give me my Stoll and like that's going to be super special. So, I wasn't so sad about losing BYU graduation, as a was about doing something with the Black Student Union”. Rhoda’s sentiment along with the other graduates help others get a gist of the importance of their achievements in their culture, for themselves as well as their families.
The graduates were asked how they feel their experience and backgrounds make the absence of a graduation ceremony even more frustrating.
Adhieu has often been singled out more than the average black student at BYU due to her skin tone and being Sudanese. She feels its important for not only her to have a ceremony but her for family and younger Sudanese in Utah and back home to see her example as she walks across the stage. Her comments on the matter are as follows “ There is a stereotype about black woman you know that is out there and like having a graduation having someone who is you know, black and dark skin get a diploma walk on stage, how thousand people see like okay like it kind of gives them a different idea of like the stereotype that’s not true about black woman you know, and not having that was kind of heartbreaking. And like you said with my cousins it's one thing to see a person of color versus a Sudanese woman get a degree. There’s not very many of us first of all, to start with, most of our ancestors died in the war. And for like my little cousins, yes, it will mean something different to them to see like a Sudanese like dark skin, not even just dark skinned but just a Sudanese.
Karmen shares similar sentiment, she expresses the need to showcase their accomplishments being that education was not “offered to a lot of like African Americans or blacks or you know, from for a long time or maybe like not the same quality of education”. She also feels there is great need for the ceremony because minority students have endured multiple aspects of hardships to accomplished their degree, “being able to like finish and like show people that like, Hey, I did it too, you know, and for people to know that we as, as black people have to do it even twice as harder or three times harder than other people. And like mentally like with education academically, and all of that, like It's unsettling but we weren't able to, to kind of showcase it you know, in a way because it means a lot to be out there and even though people white people or other people don't really get it like for us it's like wow, I really made it and I want to like show that like, we can do it too. We can do it as well. Even though all the hardships we have to go through, especially at BYU, especially with all the racism and and discrimination sometimes that we have to have to face. We like, I made it my other black friends made it like we conquered them we really like just went through with it with, with everything around us anyways.
Kamel states how graduation for a typical black community is especially appreciated due to it not being the norm for most families, “It doesn't mean so much when his dad also has his master's degree in his mom also has her master's degree. And you know, it's, you know, it's it's a norm it's established norm within their family. It means a lot less in my opinion. But when it comes to, you know, black the black community or more minority-based communities, I feel like it's valued more just because it's not as common.
Adhieu feels like seeing her own older brother’s graduation ceremony inspired her to keep pushing for her own and it could do the same for other looking up to her, “and I remember, vividly my older brother's graduation. And I remember going to his graduation I remember sitting there waiting in anticipation and comfy like waiting for the news to be called. And then cheering for them. And then after taking pictures, going to dinner. And I just always wanted like, my whole college career. I'm like, one day like, I get that like, I get there, I get my graduation, I get celebrate”.
Kamel shares some similar thoughts as Karmen earlier, taking account of how minorities are different and put though a lot more than just gaining a degree, “you feel like you accomplished more. It wasn't just an academic feat that you accomplished. You also accomplished being a double, you know, minority in the sense that I was, you know, a theological minority as far as the religion I was a racial minority as far as you know, being a African American student at BYU. You know, you are a minority in so many different ways. So, you accomplish a lot more than just that master's degree. You did it essentially, you know”.
The graduates did try to do a little to make themselves feel accomplished despite not getting the chance for a ceremony, though for most it did not come close to sufficing.
Rhonda says to her brother so like question, do you want to watch the replacement of graduation on Thursday, they titled it virtual celebration, I call it fake graduation”.
Karmen was able to have a virtual cake eating with her family and her program did a “driving graduation just for 10 people. So, we all drove it and then it was it was recorded online and so they were able to watch it on Instagram. So, they kind of got to see me walking on a street block of a sidewalk. But you know, that was kind of like a gave me closure”.
Kamel was not too impressed with his departments zoom graduation, “you would think that because it's more intimate, it's a less amount of people. Then when we do our full graduation with our you know, the Department of Marriott school. This one you know; they had a PowerPoint essentially and it had my photo and they went straight past it. It lasted for like a second”.
Rhonda tried to be positive on the day of her supposed to be graduation ceremony “I wore my new graduation dress. I did my makeup, like, didn't have my new shoes yet, but like, I just went and I went, I took my pictures at the sign at the law school and like, got to, like went to lunch with one of my best friends from the law school and we reflected on President wardens invitation to reflect on our experience and to give gratitude and that was really meaningful.”
Adhieu did something similar to try and fell that sense of accomplishments of her hard-earned degree, “Taking my graduation pictures in my cap and gown helps me to feel more like I achieved it or more as if my graduation did happen”.
Though the impact of covid-19 has taken away a lot of graduate’s right to a ceremony many, some minorities feel that something should and could be done in the future to help them still get the opportunity to walk. The struggles that some minorities and their families have endured from being able to have a higher education to being first graduates, or starting a pattern of graduates for higher education that is not typically the norm makes the effects of Covid-19, taking away their ceremony affect them on another level. However, Kamel feels that schools can become better in their interactions with minorities and the world around us directly by physically seeing minorities walk. “With me, being the only African American African American male in my graduating class that says a lot when it comes to how those people in my class ,when they interacted with me when they come in contact with another African American male or woman or female, they may have a different perspective. So, the more and more we accomplish these academic feats the more and more it improves that narrative that is attached to us and society, and the more and more it shines a light that this is a possibility.
