To our U of T Engineering community
I hope everyone is doing well, taking time for breaks and staying in touch with friends, family, and colleagues. I know I’ve had a few hiccups in figuring out this new learning and working from home plan so I hope everyone has been coming up with some good strategies – do feel free to share.
As promised – I said I would keep you up to date with our plans for Convocation, since the University’s announcement that unfortunately we can’t host the big event in person in June.
Our graduating students received a message this afternoon from President Gertler, and I want to share some more details about how we’ll be celebrating:
- The University will host a ceremony via webcast in early June — stay tuned for the exact date and time. The Chancellor, who is the Chair of Convocation, will confer all degrees in absentia, and diploma parchments will be couriered to graduates on a rolling basis following the virtual ceremony.
- The University has also posted answers to some frequently asked questions around Convocation
- When the situation normalizes and it is possible to gather safely, Engineering will host its own in-person graduation ceremonies to celebrate this important milestone. These will not happen before September 1, 2020, and will take place over the course of 2020-21 as scheduling and space permits.
- Our in-person graduation ceremonies will have many of the core elements of the traditional Convocation ceremony – from the academic procession of all the graduates, to congratulatory remarks, a convocation speaker, and individual presentation of the graduates.
Convocation is perhaps THE highlight of the year for all of our faculty and staff, and a once-in-a-lifetime moment for all our graduating students. I know that we all want to be there with you to celebrate. I can’t wait to join you all in person – so stay tuned and I will keep you posted as we start to finalize the details.
Chris
Christopher Yip
Dean
Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
University of Toronto