May is one of our busiest months of the year at Total Webcasting. In addition to our regular workload, each May includes dozens of college graduations across the state and beyond, and we tack on a few new customers each season. But now that we’ve gotten through May and the calendar has flipped to June (which has its own unique slate of jobs, including middle school and high school graduations), it is a great time to reflect on another successful college graduation season.
This year Total Webcasting covered commencement exercises for a variety of institutions large and small, public and private, including the University of Connecticut (UConn), Bard College, Wesleyan University, the City College of New York, the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz, SUNY Orange, Albany Law School, and New York Institute of Technology. Some commencements spanned multiple days, many were outdoors (presenting weather-related challenges), and all of them were important to their respective viewers.
Thousands of family members, friends, and other loved ones tuned into our webcasts from all over the world to watch someone they love graduate from college. We were also excited to note the popularity of our real-time speech-to-text subtitles, which were accessed hundreds of times in each webcast. This technology is essential for many viewers, including those who prefer to read along with speeches. (You can read more about Total Webcasting’s real-time subtitles here.)
And as usual, the commencement exercises at UConn represented Total Webcasting’s coup de maître, highlighting the breadth of our capabilities. Comprised of 14 separate ceremonies held in three different venues across campus over the course of three days, UConn’s complete graduation agenda is a full and challenging one that requires virtually all of Total Webcasting’s resources—in terms of both personnel and equipment. Despite these challenges, 2019 featured another complete success at UConn, and for the commencement season overall.