I won’t be at the ceremonies today, but if anyone has any picts or tidbits to share, feel free to do so– post a comment, send me an email, etc.
According to this article from the Detroit Freep.com, EMU’s speaker for both ceremonies will be Michael Morris, chief executive officer and president of American Electric Power. That will be fine, I guess, but if I was going to attend just one graduation today based only on speaker, I guess I’d have to go with Central Michigan, who is having “Chuck Leavell, pianist best known as the fifth Rolling Stone.”
Graduation was fabulous due much in part to the perfect weather conditions. Both ceremonies moved quickly and were run efficiently by our Welch Hall colleagues. The commencement speaker, Michael Morris, offered a serious and motivating talk that was of appropriate length. As a faculty member, my main disappointment (as it is for every graduation ceremony at EMU) was the relatively poor turnout of faculty. In fact, we had the usual cast of characters (fabulous EMU advocates) for both the morning and afternoon ceremonies. Each year the same small group of faculty show their support of students by attending the ceremony. The very vocal and frequent critics of EMU were nowhere to be seen, including certain leaders of faculty. Graduation is the most joyous day on campus. I have been on campuses where the entire faculty participates and where faculty would not ever conceive of missing this day. We have over 600 faculty and yet we have only 10-15% who participate. You have to admit that our message is inconsistent. We say we care so much about students and then we fail to share the most important day with them. I would love the administration to have to solve the problem when all 600 of us say we will attend graduation.
On another note, I really believe that faculty miss out on a very special opportunity by choosing not to attend. To see that one student who persevered and finally made it because of you, or to see that single mother with a great smile on her face when she gets her diploma, or to see the very proud family members celebrate in their child’s success, makes each faculty member so very proud to have been a part of that. A change in the EMU culture is needed (as I have often read on EMUTalk). Why cannot the change begin with faculty?
You make a good point Brad, and I will be the first to admit that I have only attended graduation once in my time here at EMU. I am one of the problems, in that regard.
For me, the challenge/problem is that the ceremonies are so big and long, quite frankly, so many of my students don’t participate. At that one ceremony I went to, I didn’t recognize one student as one of mine. Of course, that was a long time ago though. The first school I taught at had about 4,500 students, and it was much more of a tradition for faculty to attend. I went to that ceremony once– I was only there for two years though. I recall even having to march in through a gauntlet of students who lined both sides of a path, which allowed a moment to chat and such.
But you’re right– more faculty should go. I should go, at least once every other year or so. It’s a reasonably painless event and it probably does fall into the “least we could do” category of things. Maybe next year, especially if someone holds my feet to the fire and points me to this comment in 2009.
I graduated yesterday and it was such a great ceremony overall. I wasn’t a huge fan of the speaker except for the fact that he kept it short. Everyone I talked to, including my family, said it was nice…but boring at times. The only bad thing was that the people who were calling out names were overlapping each other so you couldn’t hear a lot of people get called which sucked for them. I also felt their was just a lack of overall activities going on. Campus wasn’t too busy and there were no campus activities that were really geared towards graduation. And it would have been nice to see any of my professors there.
After attending the afternoon ceremony I have a couple of good things and a few bad to say. First the good. The ceremony was very nice and there were nice words said about the graduates. Bob Holman, the man responsible for the donation that produced the Holman Learning Center, was in attendance to finally be recognized for his accomplishments many years ago. Props should be given to the people that announced names. I’m sure that they messed up some that should have been easy, but others sounded incredibly tough.
Now for the things that could be done better next year. Who in the world was responsible for hanging an American Flag from the rafters that looked like it had been balled up in a laundry basket for the last 364 days? First of all, there is a proper way to fold and store a flag. I’m sure the members of the ROTC would be more than willing to assist. It was disgraceful and tacky. If EMU is going to continue to ball up the flag for storage, pressing the flag with an iron might take 10 minutes.
Next, I think that the Convo should be better staffed. There should be ushers that keep certain areas clear of people. I was pretty sure I was going to witness a fight in the upper deck seating. A man was standing at the rail and blocking the view of everyone behind him. Standing at the rail or walking down the aisle and standing for to take a picture of your “little baby” should not be allowed. It’s distracting, disrespectful to who is speaking and rude to those who have a blocked view.
Congrats to everyone!
Morris’ company also recently donated $500,00 to the Kresge fund to help EMU raise a $1,000,000. challenge.
As a faculty member who has been one of the name ‘readers’ (with the exception of this graduation, as I’m technically on sabbatical) for the past several years, I can attest it’s a challenging task. Students write their names and are encouraged to write phonetically to assist readers. Many do not and one has 10 seconds to read and move on to the next. Though mic’ed most readers know they have to project in order to hear the other reader. Most of us (CTA and Language faculty) have had experience either in communicating in multiple languages and/or have voice training, but some names are just hard too pronounce and accurately articulate on the spot. I feel terrible (as do others) when I mis-pronounce.
I know that EMU, unlike other big universities, has decided that reading its graduates names is a priority. I initially thought it absurd (reading 2200 names?!), but recognize that the speaking of the name, the cross across of the stage is so important to families. It symbolizes a major accomplishment, a rite of passage. So. .I and others read.
I have thought however that the student voice is absent from the graduation ceremony. The president or provost tells 3 stories of EMU students, but we don’t hear their words. I feel it is most missing and hope that someday there would be some essay or poetry contest or something which celebrates the student voice for that graduation.
I would encourage those commenting above to take their comments to the provost office. I actually think they are open to ideas and would appreciate any kind of creative and constructive feedback.
I couldn’t agree more! I wish we had a student speaker, besides the student body president. And I think it was interesting how they selected the stories of people. I felt like it was so random. In the afternoon ceremony, they used 3 girls (well deserving) but I thought they should have tried to have a minority, or male, or mix it all up. Walter Church, and EMU legend quarterback graduated that day with his MBA! He came back to EMU and I thought that would have made for a great story.
to shed some light on the process EMU uses for the students is that each department/school is to select one student then present them to the College Dean. Then the College Dean presents one or two names to the Provost who then makes the final selection on who will be spotlighted at graduation.
Normally the students selected are ones who have “beaten all odds” and have been every involved with the university during their current program.