OLEAN -- I'm writing this column a little early. Instead of my usual Sunday morning coffee binge and reverie, this week my participation is necessary in commencement ceremonies at the university where I teach.
It's earlier than most college graduation days -- and falls on Mother's Day, to boot -- but that's not the only twist. This year I'm nervous and worried about how it's going to go, and I have to get up very early.
You see, in the seven other commencement ceremonies I've attended at St. Bonaventure University (two of them getting degrees of my own, five of them as a participating faculty member), somebody else always did the thinking for me. I could safely rely on herd intelligence.
In the latter category -- participating faculty member -- the norm has been to walk briskly down the center aisle of the basketball court in time to some familiar, jaunty classical music, nod and smile at seniors I have taught or advised, sit next to some faculty buddies, and whisper witty deprecations about the speakers.
Pretty sweet, huh? Soon it's all over and I can go back to putting in my summer garden. Not this year. This year I am commencement marshal for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication majors.
The honor revolves around faculty and sounds like a bigger deal than it really is. Mostly, it involves three key things -- making sure the journalism seniors follow me down the correct aisle, sit alphabetically in the right rows and don't lose the little index card with the graduate's name on it. These they hand to the dean as they mount the stage, so he can read it loudly to all assembled and thus tip off the stage aide to hand the president the correct diploma for imminent awarding.
All this, however, is a little more intricate than it sounds. I attended a prep meeting with several other rookie marshals from other departments, and as the provost explained the job we kept glancing at each other to see if we all looked as clueless as we felt.
Oh, I've had other commencement duties before, to be sure. Most often I've been a delegated "hooder" -- meaning as the JMC graduates are announced, I leave the faculty section and scurry over to the stage steps where the happy graduates ascend to get their diplomas.
Most years about half of them have draped the hood incorrectly over their heads, shoulders and backs -- downside up, inside out, back end to fore, folded incorrectly, creases flattened, tucked crookedly, colors hidden, falling off one shoulder, wadded in the drape, etc. -- violating the tradition and style of the wearing of these raiments, which date back to medieval times and have great significance of rank and achievement.
Usually, I'm not quite sure how to fix it or make the proper adjustment, but I fumble about and pretend to straighten it out, and that seems to do the trick. Besides, the idea is to keep the line moving -- and there's an official photographer at the other end of it. If the grinning graduate looks too ridiculous, the camera guy will give proper instructions.
Once, I was almost promoted to "catcher," meaning the faculty person who stands alert on guard at the bottom of the descending stage stairway, watching for graduates so entranced with reading the long-awaited diploma, or looking into the middle distance for friends and parents, they miss a step or stumble on the way down, necessitating a saving grab or attempted halt of free fall from the professor at the bottom.
I am told this vigilance actually reduces a school's insurance premium, because several college students across the nation blithely tumble off the stage each May while reading their diplomas in disbelief, breaking a limb or two. At the time, I evinced some trepidation about this role, too, because I am only 5-foot-7 and harbored visions of trying to save some towering but poorly coordinated athlete from a broken bone, and getting squashed into the hardwood for my trouble. I was politely restored to my hooding duties. Just as well. There was little action that year. A colleague who was catcher had only to help support one student in distress, from a simple misstep. Not even a broken heel.
The thought did strike me that this marshal thing presents a wonderful opportunity for a practical joke. What if I saw to it that the name cards were distributed incorrectly, some given to the wrong individuals, some out of alphabetical order, some with amusing made-up names the dean might automatically read? Surely, some iconoclastic seniors and fellow pranksters exist in the class of 2008 who would welcome the opportunity to sow chaos -- you know, the ones who write funny words on the tops of their mortarboards, or turn somersaults across the stage.
I mentioned this to my lifelong friend, the dean. He made no comment, but gave me a long look that indicated I might soon be trying this trick at Slippery Rock State, or Our Lady of the Elms.
I've decided I'd better stick to business. Besides, there are other amusing distractions available. I can always do the Gown Count to see which of my colleagues have mischievously rented the wrong colors. You're supposed to wear the colors of the school from which you obtained your highest degree. Because these rather simple stitched products are obscenely expensive to purchase, most faculty members rent them annually from national clothing houses dealing in specialty garb.
Some colleges have beautiful color designs -- especially doctoral -- displayed on their robes in silk and velvet: Ohio State's maroon and gray, Duke's dark blue and white, the University of California at Santa Barbara in shining blue and gold. Ours are brown and white. I know one prof who admires a particular NHL hockey team with black and gold colors. Sometimes he'll rent a gown representing a college with those hues -- University of Pittsburgh, Iowa State, etc. -- to show his team support. Others do likewise.
This may seem stunningly juvenile and inappropriate, but you have to understand these ceremonies are often extremely boring, crushingly so, and will drive serious adults to total distraction in a normal year. Sometimes faculty seatmates will resort to things like searching for the longest names in the program or looking for humorous typos.
One year, it quickly became apparent the commencement speaker was so dull and repetitive, an entire row of faculty got up a pool to award the correct guesser of how many times the speaker quoted someone else instead of offering a sole original thought herself. Double sourcing counted. A friend won with 47. I had 29.
Sometimes, there is unexpected relief. Five years ago, my friend Bob Schieffer, the CBS correspondent and Washington newsman extraordinaire, was about to deliver his commencement address when some idiot out in front of the campus ran into a utility pole and blew out the electricity for the whole city and surrounding towns.
Bob -- who has a magnificent voice honed by years of announcing -- soldiered on, boomed out his entire address without aid of electronics, and captivated the entire hall with a great speech.
This year, the commencement speaker is the president of Delta Airlines. He's an alumnus of my university. Who knew? Perhaps he'll explain why Delta, a once-superior airline, these days routinely strands loved ones in the Atlanta airport for 48 hours at a stretch without explanation or bad weather, and with flight after canceled flight. Maybe he'll address Delta's huge losses of more than $1.9 billion last year (most of it from the rising costs of jet fuel), or describe some imaginative new solution other than regularly raising ticket prices, or merging with smaller carriers.
There are huge upsides to graduation duty, too, of course. For me, the best is watching some young person who showed little promise or drive upon arrival four years before -- but got serious about adulthood and turned hard work and determination into academic success through his or her college career -- mount the steps in beaming triumph, confident of the future and anticipating the fruits of leadership, while proud friends and relatives look on.
Often, a senior only moments from graduation will say, "Thank you, professor ..." for some memory or instruction in the last four years that you had entirely forgotten but which apparently influenced the youth in some positive fashion. Those gratitudes are certainly worth sustaining the boring passages.
But anticipating them doesn't remove my sense of worry and trepidation about the approaching ceremony, or about my marshaling duties.
There's a precise order of drill for all this, and it approaches the need for algebraic credentials. For instance, once you march down the center aisle, you don't just enter your appointed row. You have to swing by the already-seated graduate students in the front rows, then go to the outside aisle of the main body of seats and enter from this awkward angle. Same thing for returning from the diploma reception. Always Enter From the Outside, you are told. Why this is necessary was not explained. I expect it's to keep from bumping into each other.
I have consulted my meticulous note-taking from the provost's instruction session (scribbled on the back of a fund pitch letter from the Humane Society). One admonition is to warn the graduating seniors they must keep their 3-by-5 name cards pristine. No writing in "summa cum laude" or other imagined honors. (There are usually two or three attempts at such self-promotion each year.) The dean won't read aloud anything in script or hand-writing.
Another thing I wrote down in capital letters was this: ODD-EVEN.
I have no idea what this means. I suspect it may be related to a word farther down the page: INTEGRATION.
This probably means (according to a dim scrap of memory) that I am supposed to smoothly blend rows -- as we stride into the main arena -- from different sides of the assemblage hallway, somewhat in the precision of a champion drum and bugle corps at halftime.
I will mess this up. I have trouble with my shoes. How can I possibly blend with any precision two opposite lines of chattering and excited seniors?
I will report to you, dear reader, at a future date upon how the ceremony went. And I will try my best to behave without resorting to childish pranks. The thought occurs to me:
Who needs practical jokes? I can screw this thing up completely, just with good intentions.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | May 13 2008 |