It’s Great To Have You Here (Although You’re There) • Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s online President’s Welcome Convocation for Undergraduates • 2020

Watch the 2-minute animated Opening Video.

Watch the 10-second Introduction for President Rafael Reif.

On August 31, 2020, operating under a reconfigured academic plan for the 2020-2021 school year that reflected the deep impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Massachusetts Institute of Technology webcast its second major online event of the year: a video Welcome to Undergraduates from the President and other Institute leaders. Plans to allow appropriate social distancing across all Institute operations meant that only 25% of students were able to be on campus for the fall semester of the 2020-2021 academic year.

MIT’s Institute Events team invited us to help shape an online Welcome Convocation for Undergraduates to replace their usual in-person gathering for first year students and families. The resulting program was produced over a 5-week period. We titled the 45-minute webcast Together Everywhere: An MIT Convideocation. In addition to designing animated introductions for speakers, we wrote and produced an original song—It's Great To Have You Here (Although You're There)—featured as the soundtrack for the video opener.