[President Franco Vaccarino in his home office speaking to the camera]

I hope everyone is doing well and as we work through this difficult for all of us, I am so impressed and energized by the power of our community to come together.

I am currently in my office here, working away, and trying to following the very important directives and guidelines from our governments. I encourage everyone to do the same.

It is so very, very important to do our part and do everything we can as individuals and as communities to slow down and stop the spread of COVID-19. I know everyone is working hard to do that and I just want to emphasize that point.

The other message I would like to convey today has to do with convocation.

Many of you will have read the announcement that the convocation ceremonies for June 2020 have been cancelled.

I just want to be absolutely clear about our plans. Our intentions is to actually postpone those ceremonies and try to reschedule them for the fall.

We are working hard on plans for a rescheduling of the convocation ceremonies for the fall.

As you can all imagine, convocation is an important time of celebration for all of us here at the University. It is a huge point of pride. It’s time we all come together to celebrate the amazing accomplishments of our students.

I know for families and our students, it is so deeply meaningful and important and that is why we are working hard to develop plans to move those ceremonies and move them into the fall.

Of course the current COVID-19 situation has all kinds of twists and turns and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will be able to act on that plan.

We will definitely keep you informed so please stay tuned, stay well and stay healthy. All the very, very best to all of you