Graduation for 1,000 Students from 15 to 17 April, Through a Computer Screen

Just as teaching never stopped, the coronavirus emergency has not interrupted graduations either: for the first time in Bocconi history, on 15, 16 and 17 April, Master of Science and Integrated Master of Arts in Law students will sit in front of the Degree Board to defend their theses, but via videoconference. Bachelor of Science students will participate to find out the scores for their final papers. In total, 1,000 students and 200 different sessions will take place, through Microsoft's Teams platform. This challenge is no small feat, both from technological and organizational points of view and in terms of balancing a variety of needs.

"Bocconi aims to preserve the public nature of graduations, conciliating that with the need to hold them online," explains Pietro Sirena, Dean of the School of Law. "It was not easy to accomplish all this, because in Italian legislation there is no legal basis for this situation and exams and defenses are expected to take place in person." This challenge, however, "will not prevent students from being able to demonstrate all the work they have done and all their efforts in recent months," adds Antonella Carù, Dean of the Graduate School.
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Though the graduation sessions will be online, there will still be an opportunity to celebrate the graduation ceremony: "As soon activities on campus can resume," add Antonella Carù and Annalisa Prencipe, Dean of the Undergraduate School, "a graduation ceremony will be organized not only for Bachelor of Science programs, as usually happens, but also for graduates of Master of Science programs and graduates of the School of Law."