I sure hope y’all watched the Virtual Conferring of Degrees lastnight. If you did not, you can watch it here. It included the official declaration that each of our degree groups (PhD, MD, JD, MDiv, MA/MS, and BA/BS) has officially completed their graduation requirements and are now officially graduates. But it also had several great speakers, including Mellie Mesfin (’20), our Student Government president.

AND THEN

There were a bunch of celebrity cameos! Tina Fey, Carson Daly, Jon Stewart, Tracy Morgan, Jimmy Kimmel, and Wake Forest’s very own Chris Paul. (Aside: while I love all of them, I did a shameless fangirl in my house when Tina Fey came on. She grew up a few towns down from me and is my same year, we both came south for school, and I loved her book Bossypants and her amazing work on tv and in films. She’s such a great wit.)

So, many thanks to our celebrities – and those who helped get them to join us! – for helping make the Class of 2020’s special evening especially bright.

Not to be outdone by those cameos, we sent the Class of 2020 off with a poignant and lovely gesture. For those readers of a certain age who might remember this tv moment with great affection:

goodbye scene from M*A*S*H

we see you and raise you this one:

Class of 2020 on the Quad

I admit it. I cried.

A couple of families asked questions after the ceremony about why did we not scroll everyone’s names across the screen, or read our graduates’ names. This particular ceremony was not meant to be a substitute for Commencement proper (which has all the bells and whistles of students walking across the stage and hearing their names read). You will still get that moment when we have in-person Commencement.

And the good videos just keep on coming! I got a message from Student Government about a video they recently released that contains a farewell message of the end of the 2019-2020 school year and some words for the future. It’s really well done; watch it here.

Normally at this time of year, when the seniors graduate and become young alumni, we see an understandable drop-off in the Daily Deac readership from senior families. You are welcome to stay as long as you like, of course, but for any of the P’20s who will be leaving the Daily Deacdom, I want to say a special thank you for your readership these last four years – and know that you will always be part of our WFU family.

Go Deacs!

 

— by Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (’92, MA ’94)

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