{"id":23947,"date":"2020-08-13T00:11:24","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T04:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=23947"},"modified":"2020-08-13T00:11:24","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T04:11:24","slug":"posthumous-degree-policy-causes-social-media-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2020\/08\/13\/posthumous-degree-policy-causes-social-media-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Posthumous Degree Policy Causes Social Media Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/874894591&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\" title=\"wtbu\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wtbu<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\/posthumous-degree-policy-causes-social-media-backlash\" title=\"Posthumous Degree Policy Causes Social Media Backlash\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Posthumous Degree Policy Causes Social Media Backlash<\/a><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By Grace Ferguson<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Wednesday, Boston University\u2019s student newspaper, the Daily Free Press, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dailyfreepress\/status\/1293574559787098112\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">tweeted<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about a new policy that would grant degrees or certificates to BU students who die before graduation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/academics\/policies\/award-of-posthumous-degrees-by-boston-university\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">policy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a student can be awarded a posthumous degree if they were very close to completing their graduation requirements when they died. They would also have to have been in good academic standing. Students who weren\u2019t close to graduation when they died are still eligible for a Certificate of Academic Achievement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Daily Free Press\u2019s tweet on Wednesday caused a social media storm because of the policy\u2019s timing. BU is getting ready to reopen its campus in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Many Twitter users interpreted the policy as preparation for a wave of student deaths in the fall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the policy isn\u2019t as new as some might think. The university officially enacted it in June, but it was formally considered in January, and the policy has been in the works for years, according to BU Spokesman Colin Riley.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The spokesman said it\u2019s unfortunate that the policy has been misconstrued, and the university apologizes the confusion.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>wtbu \u00b7 Posthumous Degree Policy Causes Social Media Backlash By Grace Ferguson &nbsp; On Wednesday, Boston University\u2019s student newspaper, the Daily Free Press, tweeted about a new policy that would grant degrees or certificates to BU students who die before graduation. Under the policy, a student can be awarded a posthumous degree if they were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1597,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23948,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23947\/revisions\/23948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}