Columbia’s announcement Monday that it was canceling next week’s universitywide commencement ceremony in favor of small-scale celebrations was met with disappointment from seniors and their families, upending plans that a tumultuous school year could be salvaged with the normalcy of a time-honored tradition.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations over Israel’s war in Gaza bookended seniors’ final academic year at the Ivy League institution’s upper Manhattan campus, where a tent encampment on the lawn…