SSW Closing Ceremony 2024

Jess Semaan, a person with curly dark hair wearing a white shirt stands with arms crossed against a flowering bush with white blossoms with pink blossoms behind
August 10, 2024, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm EDT
August 10, 2024, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT
Carroll Room, Campus Center and Seelye Lawn (rain location: Campus Center)

*Register here for the grief workshop with Jess Semaan.

Celebrate the culmination of our summer together with good food, a farewell set from graduating DJs Basma and Coco, dancing, art-making and reflection.

Closing Ceremony will begin with a workshop on navigating personal and collective grief through ritual facilitated by Jess Semaan, a queer Lebanese poet, psychedelic psychotherapist and group facilitator from 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. in the Carroll Room in the Campus Center. 

Food is available starting at 1 p.m. in the Wilson Atrium in the Campus Center. To-go boxes allow you to bring your food to Seelye/Juanita Dalton-Robinson Lawn for DJs and dancing or you can hang out, color and eat in the Campus Center.

Workshop description: 

As our summer journey or our time at SSW has come to end, we are all holding different layers of grief. Participants will be guided to reflect on what they are grieving and ritualize the grief through art-making. Art supplies including local dried flowers will be available for creating art as grief ritual. 

The ritual will be followed by a sharing circle and a shrine building where all the grief creations will be placed. The workshop will end with a discussion on how we continue to make space and hold grief especially during transitions and collective crises. Register here.

Schedule of events:

11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.  Grief Workshop with Jess Semaan
Carroll Room, Campus Center (rain or shine)

1 p.m. Lunch in Wilson Atrium (outside Carroll Room in Campus Center)
Grab a to-go container and serve yourself some fresh local food from the Farm Stand from Smith Catering, or Masa Mexicano tacos for gluten free folks. Sundae bar too! Hang in the Campus Center or head to the lawn for music and dancing.

1 - 3 p.m. DJs Basma and Coco spin
Seelye/Juanita Dalton-Robinson Lawn

1 - 3 p.m. Restorative Art + Play 
Relax with coloring books, write love notes to your graduating friends, decorate cards with stickers in the Campus Center, or hula hoop, dance and chat on Seelye/Juanita Dalton-Robinson Lawn