Graduation & Hooding Students as Faculty

Graduation was on Saturday and it is complicated. I, like many of my peers as part of the class of 2020, have a complicated relationship with graduation because we cannot help but continue to mourn the loss of celebrations and be a bit salty about the cancelled graduations we experienced. 

I think because of these feelings, I was especially sensitive to the class of 2021 and my students, who were really hoping to have a graduation of their own. And so I volunteered to spearhead graduation and plan it with a great group of students (some who were graduating, others who will be in future years). We worked together for six intense weeks to make our socially-distanced in-person graduation (with pods and markers for guest seating) with a joint (virtual) live-stream! We had speeches, programs, hoodings, gifts, goodies, websites, Polaroids, and more to celebrate the students in love and in style. It was a lot. But it was also everything. 

As part of the ceremony, I got to hood my amazing incredible advisees who have GRADUATED 🎉🎓🎉🎓🎉🎓 #ClassOf2021. They are a special bunch, as I wrote to my message to them on the graduation  website I created (through Notion, of course): 

Congratulations Class of 2021! As the class that welcomed me to Miami when I came for my campus visit, you all were a formative reason for why I wanted to join the Miami SAHE program as a faculty member. The group advising times, meetings, 1on1s, ProDevo events, and observing you all transition from graduate students to Student Affairs Professionals— all of these things have been highlights for me this year. Thank you for the work you have done, continue to do, and will do in your next steps. I am excited to continue supporting you all in your respective journeys and eagerly anticipating the ways you will make our field and our campuses more liveable, authentic spaces. Cheers and congrats!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

​I'm so proud of them and was so honored to hood them. (Admittedly, I was also incredibly nervous to hood them and practiced on quite a number of people just in case). 

And, in hooding my advisees, I asked them to hood me in return since I still have yet to be hooded by my own advisor. I'm waiting for that to happen, and it definitely will (with or without a "make-up graduation" UCLA plans to do at some point). AND, in asking my advisees to be part of this ceremonial process, what an honor it was for me and the perfect way to cap off (yes PUN) the first year of faculty. ​

Photo taken by one of the graduates' family members