Different graduation week for this year’s graduating students
Nothing is as usual this spring. Normally, the University’s festive graduation ceremony would have been a few hours away and campus would have been filled with happy and enthusiastic graduating students taking part in the graduation fairs, scholarship ceremonies and programme assemblies. This year, all activities are performed digitally instead.
Graduation
The joint graduation ceremony, which should have been taking place today on June 5, at 3 pm at Halmstad Arena, is cancelled. The University Vice-Chancellor decided earlier this spring to cancel the celebrations due to the current situation caused by the pandemic.
In order to make the graduation as festive and ”joint” as possible for all graduating students, a digital graduation package has been shared with all programmes, including video greetings from the Vice-Chancellor and the Student Union, which can be shown during the digital programme assemblies that will replace the ceremony this year.
”I really wish that our students had the opportunity to experience the graduation ceremony as intended. Unfortunately, the current situation unable us to carry out the ceremony at Halmstad Arena as we usually do. The most important thing, however, is that the students have achieved their goals and passed their studies”, says University Vice-Chancellor Stephen Hwang.
Digital graduation fair
The annual graduation fair Utexpo is also cancelled in its physical form. Usually, the fair attracts visitors from near and far, who are curious of the students' graduation projects. This year, the projects are displayed digitally via a catalogue in combination with short video clips presenting the projects.
The Utexpo Council, which is the group of students in charge of organizing the fair, are satisfied.
– The result is beyond expectation. The students have put a lot of work into their presentation videos and it is great to see. These are interesting projects, and I really hope that many people will visit the webpage and have a look, says Hanna Felixsson, chairperson of the Utexpo Council.
Utexpo 2020 – digital graduation fair
This year, the internship fair Praktikexpo is also being presented digitally. During Praktikexpo, the graduating students at the The Language Studies Programme – Processing and Editing Texts, display learnings from their internships via digital posters.
Scholarships
Every year in connection to graduation, our students receive a whole lot of prizes and awards. This can include anything from scholarships from Sten Fåhré’s Foundation, where the most valuable award gives the students a monetary amount of SEK 100,000, prizes for best degree project to the scholarship “In memory of Georgi” which is handed out to especially prominent mathematics students.
In memory of Georgi (in Swedish)
Oscar Johansson, David Oljelund and Alexander Alfredsson were awarded the scholarship ”In memory of Georgi”.
Graduation awards
The awards Student of the Year (one student per school) and Alumnus/alumna of the Year are being handed out for the third time this year. Due to the special circumstances, the awards were handed out during private meetings, while this normally would have been done at Halmstad Arena.
Student of the Year
The students awarded ”Student of the Year” for each school this year is Vandan Revanur from the Master’s Programme in Embedded and Intelligent Systems, Lovisa Lindqvist from the Programme Political Science – Social Analysis and Communication, Anna Fransson from the Programme in Innovation Engineering and Markus Enoksson from the Programme Psychology – Sport and Exercise. ”It is an honour just to be nominated, and it is of course a great feeling to be awarded and acknowledged, knowing that all the hard work has paid off, says Anna Fransson. Photo: Dan Bergmark
Alumnus/Alumna of the Year
The Alumna of the Year is Rebecka Larsson, previous student at our Health Education Programme. She received the award from Deputy Vice-Chancellor Anders Nelson during a private ceremony. Rebecka is awarded for her innovative contributions in her work and continuous engagement in the Health Education Programme. ”It has been fruitful to stay connected to Halmstad University”, says Rebecka Larsson, who also was an invited guest at the programme assembly for the Health Education Programme today. Photo: Dan Bergmark
“The award Alumna/Alumnus of the Year is a way for the University to show how important our students are, also after they have graduated, and show what significant contributions they make in society”, says Anders Nelson.
Every year, in connection to the graduation, Halmstad University hands out graduation letters to the graduating students. This year, the students will receive the letter via post together with a new alumni pin. Photo: Emely Niemi Jonsson
