Reading the Names

Another year has come to an end.

When you’re an academic the year starts in August or September and ends in May or June, depending on local conditions. There’s a strange, oddly hot interlude between those points that doesn’t properly belong to any particular year which is why people leave town if they can. They come back in the fall with all sorts of new and exciting diseases to share and that’s why the first month of the school year is always such a festival.

The students show up and go through the year, taking classes and figuring out how this whole University Student gig actually works. Most of them will grow along the way. The ones who don’t tend to drift off into other pursuits. And around this time of year a good chunk of them will complete their time with us and move on to new challenges. From our campus that usually means further education on another campus, but it can also mean a job or something else entirely. It’s up to them.

Last night was our graduation ceremony, an event that I look forward to each year.

We do graduation right, I think. We host it in the gym, because we can fit more people in there than in the theater and we want as many friends and family to attend as we can get. This is a milestone for these students, and they should be able to share that with their people. There are no tickets to buy – as long as people show up on time they can just walk in. We don’t even charge for parking. Welcome! That’s our motto. We also keep things moving right along. Nobody wants or needs an all-night spectacle. They want to come and See The People Do The Thing and then go somewhere else to celebrate on their own, and last night we were done in 71 minutes including all of the speeches and every single graduate in attendance walking across the stage individually.

Since I am the Emergency Back-Up Historian On Call, I get to sit up on the stage with the faculty, all of us in our billowing black robes and oddly-shaped hats happily looking out into the audience where the graduates are. For the last three years my job at the ceremony has been to read the names of the graduates as they walk across the stage. They fill out a little card beforehand, listing their name and how to pronounce it, where they’re heading next, and any shout-outs they want to make, and they hand this to me as they go by the podium at stage right. I usually spend the hour before the ceremony walking up to them randomly and asking “How do you pronounce your name?” because it’s easier to get it right from hearing it than it is from reading it, but the cards help immensely too. I like to think I get things right more often than not.

They walk over to the Dean to shake her hand and get their diploma case (the actual diplomas will be mailed, since grades aren’t even posted until the next day), then to the Chancellor to shake his hand, all while I read out what they wanted me to say. They’ve worked hard for this. Many of them never thought they’d get to college at all, let alone finish a degree, and they should have their names read. There are always cheers from the audience, as is proper.

As an advisor I get to know many of the students pretty well, which means that sometimes I make it into some of the shout-outs. That’s always a good feeling, that they would want to do that on this night. I will admit it is a bit odd to go all Third Person in front of a large audience, but so it goes.

This is why we do this, for events like this when we can recognize and celebrate the achievements of our students.

Congratulations to this year’s class. May the world treat you kindly, and may your future bring you good things.