Swine flu scare keeping kids out of graduation ceremony

By Mary Spicer

Annamae Meyer, a 2005 graduate of Meadville Area Senior High School, will graduate Saturday from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylva-nia, but the ceremony probably isn’t going to be what she’s been expecting.

Meyer and 21 fellow education majors who returned Tuesday from a month of student teaching in

Mexico

City will find out today exactly what form their commencement ceremony will take.

Wednesday, the university announced the returning students will not be participating in the scheduled ceremony because it “has received hundreds of calls from students and parents who were worried about being exposed (to swine flu) at the commencement ceremonies.”

“This was a very difficult decision since these students have done outstanding work and were looking forward to graduating with their classmates,” the university’s provost and vice president for academic affairs, William Williams, said in a prepared statement. “However, given the unknowns, we have an obligation to protect others from what they believe is possible exposure to this virus.”

According to Slippery Rock spokesman Karl Schwab, 1,341 diplomas will be awarded and almost 5,000 people are expected to attend.

According to the press release, “the e-mail advised (the 22 students) of the latest information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which reported the basic incubation period for swine flu is seven to 10 days.” Because Saturday’s ceremony falls in the midst of that period, the release continued, other arrangements are being made.

According to the CDC Web site, “Infected people may be able to infect others beginning one day before symptoms develop and up to seven or more days after becoming sick.” Wednesday, the CDC was unable to respond to a request for verification of the pre-symptom incubation period before press time. Earlier in the day, the Washington Post reported a pre-symptom incubation period of one to three days.

The form the alternate ceremony will take “will depend on the majority opinion of the involved students.” That opinion is being gathered through an e-mail survey; a decision is expected today.

One option, Meyer told the Tribune on Wednesday, would be for the group of 22 graduates to receive their diplomas in a special mid-day ceremony — sandwiched between the 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. ceremonies at the university’s Morrow Field House. “Ours will be more personable, but it would have been nice to walk across the stage with everybody,” she said.

Meyer, 22, was the only Crawford County resident in the group. A few were from Erie County and some came from Pittsburgh, but most were from the Slippery Rock area, she said.

The educators-in-training had expected to return to Pennsylvania today, but Friday’s closing of all the schools — and the restaurants, museums and government offices — in Mexico City left them with nothing to do.

Early Tuesday morning, they boarded a plane to Atlanta; a connecting flight took them to Pittsburgh late that afternoon, Meyer recalled.

A professor accompanying the group had been tipped off that newspaper and television reporters would be waiting when the group arrived in Pittsburgh. The information proved to be correct, she added.

From the time the students landed in Pittsburgh, according to Meyer, more than three days will have passed — and before leaving Mexico City, they hadn’t ventured outside the homes of their host families for several days.

They were student teaching at the prestigious America School Foundation school, where she was teaching social studies.

“We weren’t even out in the public,” she said. “I understand that the flu is a big deal, but we would know if we have it even before graduation.”

According to Schwab, all the students “report good health at this time.”

“It’s pretty disappointing,” Meyer said of the prospect of missing the afternoon commencement ceremony, where graduates of the school’s college of business, information and social science as well as the college of education will receive their diplomas. “I can understand both points of view,” she continued. “I know the university is doing the best it can, but I would like to be at graduation.”

However, university officials “don’t feel it would be a good situation for us to be there — with media and other parents,” she continued. “For us to have a better experience, they felt it would be better to have a separate ceremony for us.”

They will, however, not be forgotten. “They said they’ll read our names and film our graduation to be shown at the regular graduation,” she added. “I think they’re trying to do the best they can. I don’t know what I would do in a similar situation.”



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.

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