By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
A scene in a video of highlight from the past four years shown at BGSU summer commencement Saturday morning put viewers in a roller coaster car as it careened downward.
When President Rodney Rogers took the microphone, he clarified for those gathered for the university’s summer commencement: “That roller coaster is not on our campus.”
No, it is at Cedar Point, where BGSU through its Firelands campus, has launched a new major in Resort and Attractions Management.
Still given what the graduates who assembled the Bowen-Thompson Quadrangle have experienced in the past several year, the roller coaster image was fitting.
The video also included upbeat images of the new Maurer Center home of the Schmidthorst College of Business, scientists working on Lake Erie, the new big BGSU letters outside the union, and, of course, the Starship food delivery robots who descended on campus in early March 2020. And the video showed students wearing masks and maintaining social distance, being tested and getting vaccinated for COVID 19. Three weeks after the robots arrived, the pandemic shut down campus and continued to disrupt operations for more than a year right in the heart of these graduates’ time at BGSU.
The summer 2022 graduating class includes 933 candidates, of which 28 will be presented associate degrees, 417 with bachelor’s degrees, 443 with master’s degrees and 45 with doctoral degrees.
The past two years has been quite a journey, Rogers said. “This global pandemic has certainly taught us a great deal. However, seeing our graduates in front of us today, we are reminded of the progress, of the purpose – why we kept at it. Never giving up, always finding that way forward. Despite all those significant challenges, we have found a way forward, not just as individuals, but as a community as a university.”
He continued: “I just want to start up with a simple message to our summer ‘22 graduates, faculty and staff members: You did it. Against the odds you found a way forward together. We should be so proud of what you have accomplished to move forward together.”
