Students, faculty help close the gap left by social distancing
Nina Gheihman virtually gathered more than 70 friends and family for a monumental life event on the first Friday of April. She wore white, and champagne and dancing were involved. Gheihman was defending her doctoral dissertation in sociology, “Veganized: How Cultural Entrepreneurs Mainstreamed a Movement.” The white outfit was a pantsuit chosen as a symbol of solidarity with trailblazing women in her field and beyond. Her guests included her three-member dissertation committee. “It was all the people who are important to me in my life, and I was wearing white, but it’s not my wedding,” Gheihman joked. After the panel unanimously approved her work, Gheihman had a smaller online celebration with friends, drinking champagne and having a “Doctor of Philosophy Dance Party” with a playlist featuring ABBA and James Brown. Her outfit, inspired by the one New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore at her 2019 swearing-in ceremony, was the only holdover from her original...