“Bearing in mind these circumstances, we have made the decision to proceed this year with a virtual Commencement ceremony on May 22.”

With those words, Vice Chancellor Mariët Westermann announced that, for the second consecutive year, the Commencement ceremony for NYU Abu Dhabi’s Class of 2021 will take place online.

For most seniors, the decision — communicated via an email on March 1 — did not come as a surprise. As pandemic restrictions continue to apply throughout the UAE, many members of the Class of 2021 have resigned themselves to a virtual commencement. For this reason, some were understanding of the university’s predicament.

“A lot of the seniors did see it coming, so it wasn’t as big a shock to them as it was … last year, and because last year also had a virtual commencement, in some form, we were … ready for it,” explained Mehak Sangani, Class of 2021 and Senior Year Representative.

The relatively muted reaction to the decision was a marked contrast from last year, when 138 out of 301 students from the graduating class signed a letter calling for specific changes to the university’s commencement plans.

In her email, Westermann mentioned that, at the current moment, local authority guidelines do not allow events and celebrations on university campuses. A Ministry of Education document confirmed this, stating that “Events and celebrations shall be prohibited.”

Jerome Sajan Verghese, Class of 2021, shared, “I honestly understand the decisions made by the university administration and I am sure they tried to negotiate as much as possible before coming to this decision.”

Many students, however, expressed their frustration at the circumstances, especially as commencement was a potential opportunity for them to share their NYUAD experiences with friends and family.

Ayah Kaboud, Class of 2021, expressed her disappointment: “Now just it seems like it is never going to be possible for our families to see where we have been living, for us to show them around, for us to have an actual celebration other than our faces ... scrolling on a Zoom call for a commencement.”

For many seniors, the commencement decision was emblematic of a tumultuous senior year, the contours of which have been dictated by the pandemic.

“It is not going to be thought of as a fun year, I am sure there is going to be fun parts, I think it is always going to be overshadowed by an overarching pandemic theme… for a lot of people, having an [in-person] commencement would have made up for it,” Kaboud shared.

“I personally think the loss of commencement wasn’t the biggest loss we had this year … because not only did we lose commencement, but we lost our entire senior year to the pandemic,” added Sangani.

For students living at home, the decision dashed any hopes of getting back on campus and celebrating the past four years with their peers. Aasna Sijapati, Class of 2021, who is currently in Nepal, shared her disappointment with the situation.

“Senior spring was supposed to be the semester of all our lasts, the semester that tied my four years on campus together. And having to be away from campus and my friends in the last year of my NYUAD journey has been incredibly heartbreaking,” she lamented. “But it’s more frustrating that I won’t be able to say a proper goodbye to such an important part of my life and celebrate commencement with the NYUAD community.”

Kaboud expressed her frustration with the lack of transparency in the decision-making process, implying that several members of the Class of 2021 were confused by the process that led to this announcement. In particular, she felt the university had not explored enough alternatives to a virtual commencement, or at least been transparent about such efforts.

“I really don’t feel like the administration has given us any sort of [indication] that they are fighting for us to have a normal year, a normal commencement … they must be working hard, but we can’t help but question what is going on, if we don’t have any clue to what they are actually doing … people are left with all these questions, because there is no sort of transparency or communication throughout the entire process,” she shared.

Sangani, who has worked closely with the administration in her capacity as Senior Year Representative, also suggested that the university could have revealed more about the decision making process. She suggested that the Commencement Committee had done everything that they could, but it was unclear if the same could be said for the university as a whole.

Nonetheless, for some, a virtual commencement still presents an opportunity — however limited — to celebrate their final year in the midst of a pandemic.

“Keeping the current situation in mind, I’m just grateful to at least be with my friends throughout the semester and the day of. I can watch it with them, take pictures in gowns, spend the days leading up to it finishing up my bucket-list of things to do here,” shared Sakshi Gala, Class of 2021. “I was here on campus when the class of 2020 had their virtual ceremony and so many of them did the best they could, which makes me confident we can too.”