From the Nominator

"Against the backdrop of an uncertain health and safety situation, Wellesley faced a first-of-its-kind challenge: How to produce a traditional commencement ceremony when our graduating seniors and their families would be spread out all over the world? To ensure that our 2021 commencement ceremony would be accessible and engaging for audiences spread around the world, we would need to design a hybrid event.   

Approximately 130 seniors living off campus that spring planned to participate in their graduation remotely, and another 430 or so would participate in person on campus. Additionally, all family members and friends of the senior class were invited to participate remotely. Our charge was to design an experience that would allow these audiences to take part in a live ceremony and engage in commencement asynchronously. 

The Class of 2021 wanted their commencement to be as close to normal as possible, while also acknowledging the challenges they had faced as a class. We accomplished this by: 

• Building a central Class of 2021 website (wellesley.edu/classof2021) to host the livestream, a digital yearbook, additional virtual commencement programs, and a social media aggregator. It was a one-stop shop for all things commencement. 

• Hosting a two-way Zoom watch party. It was a place where remote seniors could watch the livestream together and the video feed from that Zoom room fed back into the livestream so that those seniors could “see themselves” as part of the event. 

• Creating an end-of-ceremony video that incorporated the voices of graduating seniors thanking their families, professors, and friends."

From the Judges

Accessibility and participation around the world--a wonderful accomplishment. Great use of technology. I'm sure they could (and likely are) sharing lessons learned. I really enjoyed their video presentations. The baccalaureate celebration was lovely and the live photo album was cool. Incorporating photos of students not in attendance of a live commencement is not easy. I credit them for including photos in the broadcast to display when a name is read and student was not in attendance. I loved how they worked with the senior council on this. Hybrid is not easy, period!