Sidewalk celebration for Oklahoma graduates

As the coronavirus pandemic upended commencement rituals across the country, Kim Gaddie, of the University of Oklahoma, wanted to give the class of 2020 a taste of tradition.

Armed with boxes of chalk, Gaddie, her husband and a few colleagues spent hours writing the names of graduating seniors on the concrete sidewalk where class members would have lined up to march into the ceremony.

"For decades it's been a tradition at OU to line up along what we refer to as, The Brooke's Mall," explained Gaddie, an Associate Senior Fellow with Headington College. "So I thought wouldn't it be cool if we could write, or chalk I guess in the case of sidewalks, the names of all the students who would normally be standing there."

Laddie's husband Keith, a Presidential Professor of Architecture and Journalism at the university said, "Everybody wants to be remembered and thought of."

Feedback was instant. Students and parents who happened to be on campus took note. They searched for names and snapped photos.

"The night of virtual commencement I was just talking with my friend Hunter and he said that he saw, I think his exact words were, 'some of the faculty members wrote out the graduate's names in chalk outside of the stadium,'" said graduate Dana Antinozzi.

The University of Oklahoma has rescheduled their in-person graduation ceremony for August for those who are able to return to campus.