There was a nice “other voices” piece in yesterday’s AAN written by EMU professor (and administrator? I know she was at one point) Denise M. Tanguay called “U-M commencement at EMU offers seniors unique experience.” It’s exceedingly polite; for example:
While I can understand the disappointment of students who cannot hold their graduation ceremony in the Big House, I invite you to enjoy your ceremony with your families at EMU, a sister institution that has many faculty and staff members who graduated from U-M. We are really one big academic community in the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area – some families have a couple of children at U-M and a couple at EMU. Instead of feeling bad about missing out on the Big House experience, why not relish the fact that you are likely to be the one class that has a “Michigan Difference” graduation experience – and do so gracefully.
I think it’s a classy article and I commend Tanguay for writing it, but I somehow predict more outcry from the folks on the other side of the tracks er, US 23.
Which reminds me: I haven’t heard much about the status of the U of M graduation as of late. Are they still coming over here, or did they figure something out?
Last I saw in one of the publications at work (UofM) they were looking at other alternatives to keep it on campus and even possibly still use the Big House.