A Graduation in May

We spent most of the weekend up at Main Campus University because after four years of hard work and fond memories, Lauren is now a college graduate.

On the one hand this does not surprise me in the least. She has put in the work, handled the responsibilities and done well there, and as someone who works in higher education myself I know how this process goes. If you do those things for long enough they will hand you a diploma. On the other hand, even as a professional historian it does sometimes sneak up on me how quickly the time goes by.

There were two ceremonies, when all was said and done.

Oliver, Kim and I headed up on Friday for the small ceremony – the one that was for the people in Lauren’s specific program. MCU is a very, very big place – big enough that they might have named the movie franchise after it, for all I know – and it’s good that they have these human-scale ceremonies where each graduate gets recognized by name and everyone gets to see them up close.

Parking around MCU is never easy and on a day where almost every sub-unit of the place was having a ceremony for their own graduates at the same time that the first-year students were moving out of the dorms it was particularly tricky, which is why I ended up dropping Kim and Oliver off a short walk from the site of the ceremony and then venturing off to find a place to deposit the vehicle. Fortunately I know where the lots are and knew there’d be one with space. Unfortunately there reason it had space is because it was in the next county over. But I am a fairly fast walker, so I made it to the ceremony with plenty of time to spare.

I got in a lot of steps this weekend. It is healthy to see your child graduate, it turns out.

It was a lovely ceremony. For these events they let you all sit interspersed with the graduates and each other and we sat at a table with a couple of Lauren’s friends and their families, noshing on the provided tasties and generally enjoying ourselves while waiting for the event to begin.

Eventually someone official went up to the podium and there was a welcome message or two, after which they called up all of the graduate students being awarded their degrees and then the dozen or so undergraduates with this particular major. The department chair handed them a certificate and posed for pictures, and we all applauded. I like that they call the students up by name. There is a lot of work that goes into this moment, and these students should be recognized for it.

Afterward there was much milling about and happy conversation, some posing for pictures, and a general sense that this was, indeed a very good day.

It was a gorgeous late spring day – the kind of day that makes you think you should just hang out and enjoy the sunshine – and we took full advantage of it by wandering around the campus, taking photos at various places, and generally basking in the glow of Lauren’s achievement.

The first stop, of course, was the Terrace by the lake because that’s what MCU is known for. It’s a vibrant place, and after a while we found some seats and ate the chocolate covered strawberries that they’d told us we could take as we were leaving the ceremony because they don’t really keep and someone should eat them, right?

From there we walked up the hill to the Lincoln statue. Every college should have a Lincoln statue.

It’s interesting how even with as often as we’ve been to this campus there are still a few places we’d never visited and Lauren took us around to some of her haunts. We spent some time in a quiet classroom in the building where her Department is mostly located and mostly just enjoyed ourselves in conversation. There’s a nice little courtyard right outside of the building that I’d never seen before, and it’s a nice place to spend time.

Eventually we started to get hungry for dinner, though, and Lauren had requested that we go to her favorite little spot on campus – a low-key and friendly Peruvian place where the food is good and the vibes are better and we had a grand time hanging out, just the four of us. This is how many of our best moments as a family are spent, after all, gathered around a table filled with good food, talking about everything and nothing in particular.

They had a backdrop on the wall where you could get your picture taken and they’d put you on their Instagram story, and how could anyone turn that down?

We rode the bus back to the car after that, took Lauren home briefly so she could drop off her stuff and then deposited her at a friend’s gathering before heading home.

Saturday started a bit earlier, and it was just me and Kim heading up to the big ceremony at the football stadium. Oliver had work to do – he knew he could only go to one of the ceremonies and chose the more human-scale one, which was a good choice. We were all suitably attired for the day, however.

Kim and I went straight to the same remote parking lot because we knew that was where we’d end up anyway and then met up with Lauren’s roommates Aleksia and Anita at their apartment. Eventually we gathered up a pretty good sized crew and then hiked over to the stadium.

MCU has been holding graduation ceremonies for more than a century and a half now. They’ve seen this one coming since September and no doubt by sometime last month they had a fair handle on how many of the roughly ten thousand graduates were likely to attend and based on that, at least from a statistical perspective, how many guests they would probably have invited to see them graduate. Somehow, though, word of this did not reach the people planning the actual event, and getting into the stadium was quite an experience for both guests and, according to Lauren, graduates as well. It took us nearly 45 minutes to get into the stadium once we’d gotten in line and then only because they started opening other gates for us right before the ceremony started, and we ended up sitting about three rows from the very top of the stadium.

Admittedly the view was spectacular from that vantage, and the weather was glorious – breezy and mild, though with enough bright sunshine to sunburn the unwary if they weren’t careful. If you look carefully, you can see Lauren in the very last row of the block of students second from the right at the back of the graduates. She’s the blonde one.

We couldn’t hear much from our vantage point – it was kind of like being in Charlie Brown’s classroom, in some ways (WAA-wa-WAA-wa-WAAAAAaaaa) – but apparently the sound was much better further down and the graduates could hear pretty well. They laughed and applauded in what seemed like the right places, anyway. The speeches were subtitled on the big screen so we could follow along, and they were livestreamed as well. At one point Kim actually logged in and listened to the main speaker that way. He seemed to understand the assignment, which is always a good thing in a graduation speaker.

At the three-quarter mark we all did the Jump Around, because that’s what you do at MCU.

And at the end they shot off fireworks, which were very impressive but they didn’t think too carefully about where the wind was blowing and for a while you couldn’t see anything inside the stadium, and that’s probably as good a signal that you should be leaving as any, really.  They piped us out to the tune of Pink Pony Club.

After an abortive attempt to meet up at a local landmark after the ceremony was defeated by the sheer weight of the crowd, we went back to Lauren’s apartment and mostly just hung out for the afternoon. Anita’s parents were there, as was Chase, and Owen stopped by with green-tea shots. We got take-out wings for lunch because we could do that – my guess is that every sit-down restaurant in the county was probably jammed with parents and graduates at that moment so take-out seemed the best option and who can say no to good wings? – and enjoyed ourselves.

For dinner we had reservations far enough outside of town to escape the graduation crush, at a Genuine Wisconsin Supper Club – the sort of place where the salad bar has iceberg lettuce and Bacos and you get the prime rib because that’s what you do and it's good. We met Kim’s parents and brother there, as well as Aleksia, Chase, and Kyler, and it was a lovely time indeed.

We stopped at a supermarket on the way back into town to stock up because even graduates have to eat, and eventually we dropped Lauren off at her place and went back home, tired but happy.

Congratulations, Lauren. You worked hard and did well, and I’m proud of you.