In regular times, the people in Middelburg always see a parade of professors and students from University College Roosevelt make their way to the Abbey Square or the Nieuwe Kerk, to witness the Graduation ceremony in June. However, these are not regular times. The Dutch Government announced on Tuesday April 21st, that there can be no events until at least 1 September. Furthermore, the Government indicated that post 1 September, if Coronavirus measures can be relaxed, the process will be gradual and that it will take some time before things will be completely back to normal. In light of this, and as previously communicated, Graduation and Convocation ceremonies cannot take place as planned. It would also not be possible to postpone these events to September, as there is still much uncertainty whether events will be allowed by then.

Instead, UCR has decided on the following:

  • ​To make our students’ moment of graduation as special as possible, we will host a special, online graduation event on June 12th.
  • ​And for those students who can and would like to come back to Middelburg, a formal reception and graduation ceremony for this graduating class will take place shortly before Christmas.

We appreciate that this is not the outcome neither us nor our students were hoping for. However, as good global citizens, we should all play our part in flatting the curve and bringing the spread of the Coronavirus under control. We will now start working on a plan to make the graduation moment on June 12th as special as possible for our students – and more details will be communicated with all at the beginning of May.