After collecting feedback from hundreds of seniors about their preferred type of

commencement celebration, Alfred State College has decided to honor its Class of 2020 by holding a virtual graduation ceremony at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 20.

Alfred State President Dr. Skip Sullivan said, “Commencement is a major milestone in the academic careers of our students. It represents the culmination of years of hard work and dedication to their chosen fields of study. We wanted to be able to recognize these students and their success, especially given the trying circumstances under which they were able to finish up their degrees. We are delighted, after receiving the commencement survey results, to move ahead with the virtual ceremony and look forward to honoring our graduates in this way.”

The ceremony will be presented as a Microsoft Teams Live Event, in which students, their families, and friends will be able to participate in the virtual celebration by going to AlfredState.edu/Commencement and joining the event.

While it may be online, the 2020 commencement will still feature all the usual elements of an in-person ceremony, including student speakers, conferment of degrees, and even the car giveaway drawing typically held at the end of the event. Alfred State will also recognize alumnus Burt Zweigenhaft with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He is a key industry thought leader and an accomplished executive in the specialty-biotech pharmaceutical and oncology care ecosystems.

Alfred State will provide graduates with some additional keepsakes to commemorate their monumental achievements. In June, the college will ship a celebratory package to students’
homes that will include a 2020 tassel, graduation cap, and diploma cover.

Diplomas will be mailed in August after all degree requirements are confirmed.

Additionally, as rules regarding mass gatherings change, Alfred State will look for an opportunity in the future to invite all of the 2020 Pioneer graduates back to campus.

“We’d love to provide students, their families, and friends with the opportunity to come together, take photos, and celebrate with us and one another in person,” Sullivan said. “In the meantime, I would like to congratulate all our Pioneer graduates on their success, and I look forward to celebrating with them virtually on June 20.”

When Justin Recktenwald noticed a Facebook post about a local business converting alcohol into hand sanitizer, he saw an opportunity to help out and make a positive impact on his community.

The post belonged to Cider Creek Hard Cider, an award-winning craft hard cider manufacturer in Canisteo owned by Kevin Collins, which sought to help local residents in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic through manufacturing and distributing hand sanitizer. Recktenwald, a 2010 graduate of Alfred State’s agricultural technology program, is the owner of Wild Brute Winery in Arkport, and The Brute, a Finger Lakes-focused wine bar located in Hornell.

“We certainly were not the originators of the idea (to produce hand sanitizer). However, Kevin was brainstorming how he could help flatten the curve and decided to distill some of his cider for a hyperlocal distribution of hand sanitizers,” Recktenwald said. “I saw his post on Facebook and offered up some wine for the effort.”

The effort evolved into a collaboration involving Cider Creek; Wild Brute Winery; Krooked Tusker, a Hammondsport-based producer of award-winning bourbons, gins, and vodkas; and Bellangelo Vineyards out of Dundee.

Cider Creek spearheaded the operation and Wild Brute helped with product sourcing and production. Krooked Tusker did the bulk of the distilling, and Bellangelo helped with raw materials and outreach.

The hand sanitizers were made “under emergency guidelines” by following regulations put in place by the FDA and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). The businesses produced thousands of bottles, which were distributed by Cider Creek through its social media channels.

On the front line

BG: I am grateful that I am able to work, even during scary times like this. I signed up to be a nurse and although I didn’t sign up to reuse a mask for several shifts, I continue to love the career path I chose every single day. I think the coronavirus made me value so much in life and at work. Having a no-visitor policy during this pandemic means healthcare workers are patients’ only bedside support – the only one by their side when they get those official COVID-19 test results back, or when they get that diagnosis of a miscarriage, cancer, or mental illness. It’s truly the first time I’ve ever been scared to go to work, not because I am exposed to COVID-19, but because I continue to watch patients suffer. I fear for my friends’ and family’s health and having the staff and equipment to properly treat them.

DN: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased my work load and changed experiences throughout the day – making normal 12-hour shifts into back-to-back 18-hour shifts, hearing terrible stories, and seeing lives being lost all day long, every day. With the volunteer fire service, it has changed drastically. Not only do our day-to-day responses change and the way we do the job change, but COVID-19 has directly impacted our department, as well as myself. In the middle of March after a week of work and responding to fires and other emergencies, I came down with symptoms. After waiting a week for testing, I got the results that I was positive and I needed to quarantine for two weeks.

BG: Being a student-athlete taught me discipline and brought me failures, success, obstacles, and goals in life. It taught me how to take a loss, but also how to learn from it and use it as motivation for the future. Although it seems as if there are so many losses that COVID-19 has brought us, we are also being reminded of our countless blessings and how much we have to be grateful for.

DN: The most valuable lesson I learned as a student-athlete that helped me throughout this situation is one I use every day of my life: hard work and selflessness are important. To be a volunteer fireman, you have to be a completely selfless human being. My brothers and sisters that, every day, take on the act of running into a burning building, responding to vehicle emergencies, and now responding to medical emergencies that involve COVID-19 patients are the definition of selfless, hard-working human beings.

Brooke Geibel, Danny Napolionello,
and two other Pioneer student-athlete
alums at AlfredStateAthletics.com.