Limited graduation ceremony leads to a petition

Students of St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai have taken a stand against the administration’s decision of conducting an exclusive graduation ceremony for only those students who have topped various subjects of their department. The college has done so to accommodate the previous batches[2020 & 2021] who graduated online due to the COVID-19 Virus. Conducting a ceremony to encompass the three batches in their entirety is proving to be logistically difficult for the staff.

“While I empathize with the college on the difficult position it is in, I'm upset that they didn't ask us for solutions or alternatives,” said a student who graduated in 2022. “Graduating college is a big achievement in itself not to mention the situation of illness and isolation. To decide who "deserves" that recognition based on quantification is something that I didn't expect from my alma mater.”

A petition was also circulated by a student from St. Xaviers’s. Around 700 students have signed it within 10 hours of it being released on change.org.

An outstation student thought differently about the issue, “Our college life succumbed to COVID-19, we already missed our fests and the campus life. With this in mind, I am not sure whether I would fly back to Mumbai to attend a ceremony in the event one was held.”

This is the first graduating ceremony to be held on the campus after the pandemic.

“When I was in college the convocation was held in February before the examinations since a lot of students left Mumbai after examinations. Everyone was allowed to participate in it. For almost five days, classes would arrange themselves in the first quad and click pictures with robes on. I think the administration is being a bit harsh by not allowing everyone to be a part of the ceremony this year’ said an alumnus who graduated from the college in 2009.