Middletown. SUNY Orange to hold online virtual graduation celebration

SUNY Orange will recognize its Class of 2020 with an online celebration of graduates at 4 p.m., Thursday, May 21. The college’s in-person commencement ceremony that was originally scheduled for that day has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The virtual celebration will include messages to the graduates from Fred Watson, chair of the SUNY Orange Board of Trustees, and Dr. Kristine Young, college president. In addition, the graduates’ names will scroll online. The event will be streamed on the SUNY Orange Facebook page at 4 p.m. and will be reposted to the college’s YouTube channel.

“We know we cannot replicate the treasured commencement experience online, and we are not trying to,” Young said. “But we don’t want that May 21 date to pass without properly recognizing what our graduates have achieved.”

The college plans to eventually hold an in-person graduation ceremony for the Class of 2020, but the date has not been determined.

In the run-up to the online event, the college’s social media platforms will share messages of congratulations and student successes, culminating in an interactive social media wall that will stream posts from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook that feature the hashtag #SOClassof2020. Employees, alumni, family and community members are invited to engage with each other via social media during the event.

Congratulatory video messages (from 5 to 15 seconds) can be submitted to photos@sunyorange.edu for use across the college’s social media platforms prior to the event or can be shared via social media during the event by using #SOClassof2020.

All messages and social media posts that include the hashtag #SOClassof2020 will be eligible to appear on the SUNY Orange social media wall as the celebration is playing live on Facebook. Viewers will also have the opportunity to participate in real time via the comment window.

The SUNY Orange Foundation will be collecting messages (longer or more detailed than typical social media posts) on a Kudoboard for graduates to see. Following the virtual celebration, the Foundation hopes to collate these messages into a keepsake that will be sent to graduates.Alumni, donors and others are welcome to participate. Messages can be posted to Kudoboard in the following ways:

By emailing Jen D'Andrea at jenniferdandrea@sunyorange.edu

By visiting the Foundation's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/sunyorangefoundationandalumni

Or from the Foundation's website at www.sunyorangefoundation.org.