RCC Commencement goes virtual due to coronavirus

RCC will hold an online graduation ceremony to honor all of its 2021 graduates.

At 6 with brian morton, alicia rubin, chief meteorologist matt hoffman, and sports with josh shelton."

Rural community college colleges, plenty to hold an online graduation ceremony.

This saturday, corey evan hacc is the vice president of student services at rcc.

Thanks so much for being with us today.

Thank you.

So how has the online graduation going to work?

Uh, essentially it's going to be a taped ceremony of, uh, our regular graduation routine.

So we have, uh, decorated a stage complete with speakers and, uh, interpreters.

And we have a great videographer working with us and we'll be doing lots of filming, splicing, adding pictures, adding students' names and running it on youtube and facebook.

So how do people get to look at it?

They know specifically where to go.

Do you send out a link to the students or how, how are people going to get connected to those channels?

I think the easiest thing for people to do is to go to the rcc website and just find the link on the rotator so they can find the youtube link there and then join the facebook.

It's kind of a live more or less celebration on facebook that's happening at the same time.

So i think the youtube link is where you'll see the ceremony on the facebook site is where you will maybe do your celebration.

What kind of feedback have you received from students about the concept of having the commencement going online this year?

You know, i think students overall are disappointed.

It's a big achievement to have spent all this time and money and hours and hours, uh, working on academic tasks.

And then at the end on the one day you get to celebrate with your family and friends and the people that work at rcc, uh, it's moved online and i think they're disappointed, but certainly everybody understands.

We just don't have very many options.

Um, our graduating class from this year will be invited back.

Next year, if they'd like to walk at the jackson county fairgrounds and a regular ceremony, i guess that leads me to my next question.

What do you folks know about what next year might look like for those who are coming back?

Well, next year, you mean fall?

So in the fall we're planning, uh, to be online, uh, to be in person.

So as much as possible, we are planning our fall schedule to return.

And if we have to go online, if, uh, we are told by the governor's office that we need to move back online, we will do that in the middle of the fall term.

But our hopes are that it would be a regular fall term for