University News

May 4, 2020 | Tom Breen - UConn Communications

Celebrating UConn’s Class of 2020

In a challenging years, UConn's graduating students offer hope and inspiration.

Students walk past the Wilbur Cross Building on Oct. 5, 2018. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

(Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

Take nothing for granted.

That may be one of the familiar clichés of graduation season – this isn’t an ending, it’s a beginning; follow your dreams; your time is now – but it’s a truth that won’t be forgotten by the members of the Class of 2020.

Barely midway through their final semester, a world that had previously seemed largely predictable in its broad outlines turned instantly into a terra incognita governed by words like pandemic, lockdown, quarantine, flatten the curve, and social distancing.

The long-term changes to our world wrought by the COVID-19 epidemic are still uncertain, but for the members of the Class of 2020, one immediate effect was all too clear: the remainder of their final semester would take place online, and their commencement ceremonies – the day that serves as a capstone to years of hard work and determination – would not take place, the first time since 1914 UConn has been without graduation ceremonies in the spring.

But the disappointment of that moment eventually gave way to a recognition that the abrupt change that befell the world in March will not be the last word on the Class of 2020. The 8,912 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students receiving their degrees this month may not be able to gather in person to celebrate their accomplishments, but those accomplishments merit celebration all the same.

As it does every May, the University of Connecticut has launched a website to highlight a few of the outstanding students receiving degrees this year; to reflect on their class and their times; and to pay tribute to the families whose support and unswerving belief are just as much a part of graduation as the traditional cap and gown.

Here you’ll find students from each college and school within the University: undergraduates, graduates, and professionals; artists and scientists; writers and activists; people who grew up a stone’s throw from Storrs and people who came to campus from thousands of miles away; people whose diverse backgrounds and circumstances symbolize how a tiny school founded for Connecticut farmers in 1881 has become a global university, while remaining true to the best traditions of our state.

Their reflections on life at UConn and plans for the future offer refreshing and crucial perspective in a time when certainty itself has seemed to vanish from our lives. These are not people intimidated by the circumstances the world finds itself in, nor are they marooned by self-pity at the loss of a critical rite of passage. Instead, they are grateful for all that UConn has given them, and they are eager to make their mark on the world at large.

When the history of our time is being written, the Class of 2020 won’t be remembered for the pandemic, but rather for how they responded to the challenges it presented. These students are proof that memory will be of meeting, and overcoming, a great test of their character and ability.

Visit the Class of 2020 website here.

UConn will be holding its first-ever “virtual commencement” live on Saturday, May 9 at 12:00 p.m. EDT. Please join us at the University’s official YouTube channel.

View some memorable moments from the last four years, as captured by University photographers: