Graduation Insights

In a typical year, I attend one Hofstra commencement ceremony in December and four during May.  The May commencement exercises have individual ceremonies for undergraduate, graduate, Law, and an Honors Convocation while the December ceremony has all of the above for midyear graduates.  Only one of our May ceremonies, the undergraduate ceremony, has been held outdoors regularly and for this year’s ceremony, the weather was perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold, nice breeze, not raining, no thunder and lightning.  For an outdoor ceremony, you could not have had better weather. And yet, within two weeks of this year’s ceremony we made a decision that going forward the undergraduate ceremony would be divided by colleges and schools into two separate ceremonies and would be held indoors in our comfortable air-conditioned arena. Why the change?  We were not satisfied with our rain plan which would have moved the entire undergraduate ceremony into our arena with very limited seating available for family members and friends of the graduates. For an occasion as important as graduation, limited seating, even only under adverse outdoor weather conditions, was not OK with us, and so the decision was made.

At this time of year, typically after attending  commencements, there is always a period of time when all of us tend to reflect on what worked well, what didn’t work well but still worked, and what didn’t work period.  This year, I attended not only the Hofstra commencements but also one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school commencement for my local school district.  What always works well and for me is an essential part of any meaningful commencement is that each graduate has his or her name read aloud, and each graduate has a chance to shake hands with the appropriate official from that school or college.  I know that this may not be possible in schools with very large graduating classes but in those cases there should be alternatives provided that include recognition by name and a meaningful handshake from the institution involved. 

Speeches being short also works well.  It is very rare for a graduate or that person’s friend or family to focus on much more than the graduate’s actual rite of passage.  For the most part, speeches seem to be some variation of I did it; see what I did and you too can do it; even if it is a lousy economy you can do it; while you do it, remember your loved ones; remember those less fortunate than you are; remember the importance of education; and by the way, you and your generation should save the world; as well as, in very rare cases, see what I did and don’t do it.   All important and meaningful messages but here especially the guideline of “be brief, be sincere, and be seated” serves the speaker and the audience very well.

Going back to outdoor ceremonies, be sure to provide drinking water to graduates and to the audience as well if at all possible.  Equally essential is that outdoor ceremonies, especially late in June, should be held early in the day. Late in the day on a hot humid day outdoors or in an unair-conditioned venue indoors, should be avoided if at all possible.

And going back to names at graduation for a moment, having sat through a total of eight ceremonies, I am compelled to report that of all the names that were read at all these ceremonies for all these graduates, there was not one Herman mentioned.  Almost any other first name you can think of was mentioned at least once.  Either I have a dinosaur of first names or I need to be invited to a commencement in Germany to truly see how vibrant a first name I have.

Commencement Rules

Whenever I think of commencement, I always think of President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech-making quote—“Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”  For any and all speakers at a commencement, there needs to be a realization that this is the graduates’ special moment.  The time should not be filled by long speeches, by overly technical speeches, by politically divisive speeches, or by crude humor.  And having gone – to date – to approximately 200 commencement ceremonies, I have experienced all of the above (thankfully, very rarely) as well as many commencements that were virtually perfect.

The speaker at my own undergraduate commencement spoke endlessly (well over an hour).  It became difficult to tell at the time whether this was a commencement speech or a filibuster.  An endless speech together with being outdoors on a very cool night led to an audience flight of major proportions.  My parents, my brother and my sister-in-law all left before the end of the ceremony.  And since this was a time before cell phones or text messaging, I didn’t know they had left until I had waited almost 30 minutes at the spot we were supposed to meet at, after the ceremony.  At that point, when I called my parents apartment, my mom answered the phone and said they were all waiting for me.  With almost no cash in my pockets (my sister-in-law was holding my jacket with my wallet), I headed for the subway.  During that ride, I had plenty of time to begin developing my guidelines for commencements.  First rule, the length of speeches and the number of speakers needs to be limited. Second rule, a subway ride is not necessarily a moving experience when it takes place immediately after graduation.

Any rule book on commencements needs to include honorary degree recipients.  Clearly in awarding an honorary degree, the single most important factor should be the accomplishments of the person being honored.  An honorary degree recipient is present to not only receive individual recognition but also to inspire.  Therefore the standard for anyone receiving an honorary degree should be nothing less than excellence.  But accomplishment also needs to be accompanied by a high ethical standard.  The person needs to be honorable.  It makes no sense to recognize accomplishment but not take into consideration the person being honored.  A political opinion, different from your own, however, should not be a disqualifier (though as I noted above, commencement is not a time for a politically divisive speech).  Universities thrive on different opinions; a litmus test before an honorary degree is approved undermines the principles we work so hard to preserve.

The rule book on commencements should also strive to build as much of a personal experience into a commencement as possible.  Easier said than done.  There needs to be an opportunity provided for the graduates’ names to be read, for a handshake from the university president and/or other university leader, for a toast in honor of the families and friends that supported the graduating students all through their experience. If there is a very large graduating class, too large to do all of these things at the commencement itself there need to be other opportunities built in.  Graduating is a job well done; the personal recognition should always be there.  And for the highest achieving students, we should do even more.

Even after 200 commencement ceremonies, I still enjoy going to commencements.  And what for me still matters most, going back to my own commencement, is the experience of the students.  For all of us in higher education, it is the value of the student experience from day one through graduation that needs our greatest attention.

Theories on Commencement

A day after our December commencement exercises and two days after a 24” snowstorm, I am on an airplane flying to Hawaii.  At this and every other commencement, I always watch the parade of graduates – from the bachelor’s level to the doctorate- march across the stage.  And as they march, I wonder whether we have done all that we can do to provide an education that will serve their needs and society’s needs.