Between COVID and, before that, maybe a touch of commencement fatigue, I hadn’t been to a Penn State graduation ceremony since at least 2018. And when I dug a necktie out of deep storage on Saturday morning, I hadn’t worn one since I was invited to a reception at the American Consul General’s residence in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2019.
Knotting a tie, I’m happy to report, is like riding a bicycle: Once you know how, you never forget, although it took me four tries to get my selection the right length. Too short and you look like Oliver Hardy. Too long and you look like Donald Trump.
Not that it mattered. Once I was gowned, you’d only see the knot.
Harder than knotting the tie was finding one that’s more or less in style. Most of the several dozen in my collection were purchased or received during the 1990s, a golden age for male plumage, if you ask me, but now considered too wide and too gaudy.
Back in the aughts, I wore such ties to teach. My all-time favorite student evaluation was, “Professor Frank’s neckties are way cool.” (Walking dad joke that I am, I take my “way cools” wherever I can get them.)
At some point, though, ties of any (or no) stripe began to seem overly fusty for our schlumpfy age, so I mothballed my entire fleet – a term I use figuratively. Had I deployed actual mothballs, my academic gown might not have sprouted holes since last I wore it. Don’t tell anyone, but I camouflaged them with a few strokes of a black marking pen.
Another excellent life hack: I used a sticky mailing label to remove a thousand fuzzballs from the hem of my garment.
Neither of these signs of neglect would have appeared if I taught at the University of the South, where last I heard, the profs still wear their regalia to class.
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Surprisingly, for such a tradition-steeped ceremony, much had changed since my last Penn State commencement, partly due to the digitalization of everything and the pandemicization of everything else:
- The short flight of steps leading up to the Platform of the Dignitaries was replaced by a runway that passed in front of the Platform of the Dignitaries. Ergo, no handshakes, nor even elbow bumps with said dignitaries. Ergo, no wobbly and occasionally calamitous journeys upstairs and down by inexperienced high heels wearers.
- The role of nomenclator – the person who calls each graduate’s name – was played by a robo-nomenclator, who performed, which is to say pronounced, flawlessly.
- There was no printed program. One could call it up on one’s phone or read the names of each graduate on a giant screen, which also showed us ourselves, standing, sitting, clapping, singing and fidgeting, as the moment demanded. We withstood an avalanche of Olivias, quite a bit more than a modicum of Madisons and an embarrassment of Emmas and Emilys.
- And of course, we had a new university president. I shared an elevator with President Bendapudi after the ceremony. Her goal for the weekend, she said, was to make it to nine of them (ceremonies, not elevators — each of Penn State’s dozen colleges has its own, plus there’s the graduate school’s). I did not envy her, but then, I never envy administrators, even the ones who live at the end of private driveways and fly around in corporate jets.
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As for the speechifying, there were the requisite quotes from the sages of the ages – in this case, Ted Lasso and Taylor Swift. The dignitaries mentioned COVID, but only in passing. I got the feeling there was a tacit agreement that too much dwelling on the pandemic would have been a buzzkill.
I respectfully disagree. Most of the class of 2023 enrolled in Fall 2019, which means their first year was cut short when they were told not to return to campus after spring break; their sophomore year was mostly one giant Zoomathon; and their junior year was mostly one giant maskathon, which means that only their senior year was entirely normal.
I think they deserved greater acknowledgment of how truncated their college experience was and how much resilience they showed in bouncing back this year.
Last summer, after a semester of zombie students, I was feeling ready to call it a career. Then I had my best year ever.
From August to May, my students showed a keener appreciation of the joys of sitting together in a room and talking about matters of mutual interest and concern than I’d seen in all my 25 years at Penn State. During one notable 9 a.m. class, all 18 attendees joined the conversation of their own accord. That was a first.
It was to honor that level of engagement that I knotted the necktie, donned the mothy gown and the velvet beret with the golden tassel, and applauded all those Olivias and Madisons as they shuffled or sashayed across the runway.
