Central Community College Nebraska
CCC Nebraska partnered with The C2 Group to transform a traditional graduation ceremony into a virtual celebration for family, friends, faculty, and classmates to come together and experience safely from home.
The Challenge
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Class of 2020 have had to miss many of the milestones that traditionally mark the end of their college experience. While schools like Central Community College grapple with transitioning the physical to digital, it has spurred an opportunity for teams to embrace creativity and innovation towards their approach to learning, events, and more.
CCC Nebraska partnered with The C2 Group to help transform a traditional graduation ceremony into a virtual celebration with family, friends, faculty, and classmates to come together and experience safely from home.
Graduation is a rite of passage – a moment of celebration and recognition. For many families, seeing their students walk across the stage and hearing their child’s name read aloud is a treasured experience. For students, walking across the stage to receive their diploma is the final moment and rightful sendoff for recognizing all their dedication and hard work.
Challenged with physical campus closures and social distancing, CCC recognized the importance of bringing individualized attention to each of its students’ accomplishments. Already using a variety of distance learning techniques, it saw digital as an opportunity to commemorate its Class of 2020 in an inclusive and innovative way, despite being unable to hold an in-person event.
“In light of current challenges surrounding coronavirus and having to close down our campuses for the remainder of the school year, we wanted to create a digital destination to celebrate our graduate’s achievements’ and provide a meaningful experience for students and their families.”
Tiffany Seybold, Web Content Specialist at CCC Nebraska
Amidst the pandemic's challenges, CCC Nebraska and C2 innovatively transformed the quintessential graduation experience, launching a virtual ceremony that ensured the Class of 2020 didn't miss their pivotal moment of recognition, reaching families and students safely from their homes. This digital pivot highlights creativity, resilience, and a profound commitment to student accomplishments.
Amidst the pandemic's challenges, CCC Nebraska and C2 innovatively transformed the quintessential graduation experience, launching a virtual ceremony that ensured the Class of 2020 didn't miss their pivotal moment of recognition, reaching families and students safely from their homes. This digital pivot highlights creativity, resilience, and a profound commitment to student accomplishments.
Amidst the pandemic's challenges, CCC Nebraska and C2 innovatively transformed the quintessential graduation experience, launching a virtual ceremony that ensured the Class of 2020 didn't miss their pivotal moment of recognition, reaching families and students safely from their homes. This digital pivot highlights creativity, resilience, and a profound commitment to student accomplishments.
Solution
CCC’s digital team worked with C2 to quickly respond and preserve some of the pomp and circumstance of a traditional commencement. Amplified by an ongoing web support agreement, hours from a monthly retainer can be used to access any part of the C2 team including development, UX, and CMS. With nimble planning, several site templates were developed to foster a dynamically rich experience and commemorate CCC Nebraska’s 2020 graduates.
A revised approach to its existing directory page template redefined the in-person event into an interactive web experience including the welcome address and speeches, photos and videos, and more. Additionally, the site added a social media wall that collects and filters photos and posts from the school’s social networks and the hashtag #CCCgrad2020 for the community to share how they are safely celebrating. Individual graduate profiles give students a chance to share their accomplishments and future goals, embed rich -content including certificates and honorary awards or videos, plus a virtual guestbook for family and friends to post encouraging messages and share their excitement for their next journey.
Although this year’s graduation wasn’t exactly what everyone expected, CCC was able to embrace digital to acknowledge and celebrate over 1,100 students’ success and accomplishments in a safe and accessible way, together.
“Beyond trying to emulate a traditional in-person ceremony, we worked with C2 to create a templated solution that would give each graduate a personal page to publicly show off their accomplishments, yet be flexible enough to reuse for different purposes in the future.”
Tiffany Seybold, Web Content Specialist at CCC Nebraska
