{"id":160345,"date":"2020-04-29T07:20:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T11:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=160345"},"modified":"2022-06-22T08:30:44","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T12:30:44","slug":"cant-gather-person-commencement-no-problem-thanks-uconn-gaming-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/04\/cant-gather-person-commencement-no-problem-thanks-uconn-gaming-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Can&#8217;t Gather in Person for Commencement? No Problem, Thanks to the UConn Gaming Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; font-family: 'Georgia',serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The COVID-19 pandemic has led to postponements and cancellations for everything from Memorial Day parades to the Summer Olympics, and UConn has not been spared.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; font-family: 'Georgia',serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The news that the traditional commencement ceremony won&#8217;t be happening in May left the Class of 2020 disappointed; longing for a chance to walk across the stage and hear their names called like almost every class in UConn history, it seemed the pandemic had dashed their hopes. But, when Andi Duro \u201921 (ENG) heard the news, he had a different reaction.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; font-family: 'Georgia',serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">How, he wondered, could he bring the class of 2020 the graduation they wanted, in the very place where they wanted it &#8211; on the fabled floor of Gampel Pavilion? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; font-family: 'Georgia',serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">After seeing other schools like <\/span>the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/3\/31\/21200972\/college-students-graduation-minecraft-coronavirus-school-closures\">University of Pennsylvania<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">recreate their campuses in Minecraft (an open-world video game that allows user to create nearly anything using blocks), Duro, along with Ryan Marsh \u201920 (ENG) and other UConn Gaming Club members, got to work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; font-family: 'Georgia',serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cI recorded almost the entire thing, and it\u2019s 12 hours,\u201d Marsh says of building the Minecraft-style graduation at Minecraft Gampel. \u201cAnd that\u2019s with missing a few sessions.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; font-family: 'Georgia',serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Duro and Marsh sat down with Maxine Philavong \u201920 (CLAS) of the UConn 360 Podcast to talk about their plans for the club\u2019s virtual graduation ceremony, how they built the virtual replica of Gampel, and how students can get involved.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Listen here:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-160345-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Minecraft-Graduation_mixdown.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Minecraft-Graduation_mixdown.mp3\">https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Minecraft-Graduation_mixdown.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; font-family: 'Georgia',serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the planned commencement ceremonies this spring, the UConn Gaming Club sprang into action on a virtual version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":160346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2213,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-160345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","series-heard-here-uconn-360"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 12:29:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160345"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160377,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160345\/revisions\/160377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/160346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160345"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=160345"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=160345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}