At Syracuse graduation, Chancellor Kent Syverud absent as community rallies

The JMA Wireless Dome felt like a milestone and a farewell at once, with Mike Tirico on the stage and Chancellor Kent Syverud missing from the celebration. For students, families and faculty packed into Syracuse University’s university-wide Commencement, his absence was impossible to miss.

Syracuse University held the ceremony Sunday, May 10, at the Dome, where the university-wide program for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral candidates was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. and run until about noon. Tirico, the NBC Sports broadcaster and Syracuse alumnus, served as keynote speaker before thousands of graduates and their guests. Syracuse.com reported that about 50,000 students, faculty, family and friends were expected on campus for commencement and related ceremonies.

Syverud’s absence carried extra weight because Syracuse University had said in April that he had been diagnosed with a form of brain cancer and was undergoing treatment at University of Michigan Medicine. The university said he was among six honorary-degree recipients slated to be recognized at the May 10 ceremony, a role that made his absence feel especially personal for many in the crowd.

In the days before commencement, the campus had already shown how deeply the Syracuse community had rallied around him. The Student Government Association organized an April 28 “Go Gray in May” walk to support Syverud and brain cancer research, and university messaging said more than 60 recognized student organizations backed the effort. That support carried into graduation weekend, where the focus remained on the students, but the missing chancellor was part of the story in the Dome.

The weekend also marked a leadership handoff for the university. In March, Syracuse University announced that J. Michael Haynie would become its 13th chancellor and president, assuming the role in May. That transition gave Commencement an added layer of significance, with one chapter closing as another began in front of a crowd that filled the Dome and the surrounding campus.

For graduates crossing the stage, the ceremony still delivered the familiar markers of Syracuse’s biggest academic day. But the empty place left by Syverud, alongside the public support that gathered around him in April, made this year’s Commencement feel less like a routine ceremony than a community holding together through change.