Convocation 2022 - Message from the Deans

The convocation ceremonies for the BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications are always momentous events, as we combine the “pomp and circumstance” of graduation rites with the artistry, the virtuosity, and the compelling stories of our remarkable graduates. Viewers and participants in the 2022 CFAC convocation will also be witnesses to history: this will be our first in-person convocation celebration since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as our last convocation in the Harris Fine Arts Center. The new facilities we have in the works will offer new artistic and academic opportunities for future generations of students, but we won’t ever forget that the light that we carry into the future was lit from the flame stoked for over half a century within these walls--and that you 2022 graduates were the last to carry that torch out of these doors and hand it off..

We are so proud of you. The burdens students bear in our demanding programs are heavy under the best of circumstances. But you CFAC graduates of 2022 overcame unique challenges that neither you nor your faculty mentors could have anticipated four years ago. You gave concerts for empty halls, but learned how to cultivate online audiences around the world. Aspiring theatrical artists treated social distancing as a feature, not a bug, and the challenge led to ingenious technological and artistic solutions. Artists, designers, and communicators, you embraced the challenges of the Covid pandemic by asking with greater urgency the same question storytellers always ask themselves: how do I take what’s in my mind and my heart, and find a way to send that over a distance--from a stage, a page, a gallery wall, or a screen--to the heart and the mind of the person who needs it? Graduates, you will go forward into your lives as artists, scholars, citizens, and saints with a type of grit, creativity, resiliency, and passion that only emerges when it’s hard-fought.We invite you and your loved ones to join us, in the HFAC or beyond, in celebrating your amazing accomplishment!

Best,

The Dean’s Office
The College of Fine Arts and Communications