From PSU to NYU to UVM: A Commencement Road Trip

Allow me an exhale of deepest parental satisfaction: I’m just back from watching the youngest of my three children take his place among his sisters as a holder of a college diploma. Woo-hoo!

This does not mean that my parenting responsibilities are at an end, mind you. The day after commencement exercises at the University of Vermont, I loaded skis, boots, books and several trash bags full of clothing into my car for transport to my house in State College, which will now serve as a storage unit while my son transitions to his next living situation, wherever it may be. My house is already serving as a storage unit for my daughter while she transitions to her next living situation.

The only thing that detracted from the joy of graduation day was the tediousness of UVM’s commencement exercises. Unlike at Penn State, which only holds college-by-college ceremonies in May, UVM gathers for both a university-wide ceremony and individual college ceremonies. It made for a long day.

The university-wide exercises began at 8:20 a.m. outside on the University Green. When we got there, on time, all the seats were taken. The attendees in the best seats must have arrived an hour early when the temperature was barely above 40. (Burlington is less than 50 miles from the Canadian border, after all.) We found perches at the bronze feet of UVM founder Ira Allen, costumed for the occasion in a cap and gown.

Why the early start? Because the university thought we needed to be welcomed, congratulated and inspired by anyone who’s anyone at the school and in the state, including the governor, the president of the university, the president of the faculty senate, the president of the staff council, the president of the alumni association, the chair of the board of trustees, the student government president. Everyone but Bernie Sanders, which was too bad. I miss Bernie Sanders.

As for the quality of these orations, let me put it this way. It was a good day to play Commencement Bingo: Quotes from “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” The keen insight that this wasn’t the end of the Class of 2017’s journey but the beginning. Learning is lifelong. Follow your passion.

We sat and stood and fidgeted and porta-pottied through two and a half hours of this stuff. A good editor might have shaved a half hour off the proceedings just by cutting adjectives: Wit instead of keen wit. Efforts instead of tireless efforts. This occasion instead of this amazing occasion.

The one highlight was featured speaker James Fallows, a distinguished journalist who exhorted the graduates to subscribe to a newspaper (yay!), to vote, maybe even to run for local office.

His biggest applause lines were obvious digs at President Trump. ‘What is noblest and most powerful about this country is precisely its openness to talent from around the world,’ Fallows said. ‘My America is not the one that builds a wall.’ 

Fallows also got an implicitly anti-Trumpian cheer when he spoke in praise of science.

After a 45-minute break we came back to the University Green for the College of Arts and Sciences ceremony. Now it was time for the new grads to cross the stage as their names were called. This time we had chairs. The sun had come out and the temperature had risen. We passed around sunscreen and water cups. We cheered lustily for Ethan Freeman Frank. (Unlike at Penn State, no one told us not to.)

Then I hugged our man of the hour, savoring the knowledge that, having written tuition checks since 2005, I will never have to write another one.

Three days earlier, we had watched as purple-gowned NYU graduates crossed the stage at Radio City Music Hall. Great venue, no? (The day before, NYU had held its university-wide ceremony in another iconic building, Yankee Stadium, but we skipped that one.)

This was my wife’s niece’s graduation. It featured fewer speakers than UVM and, in a nice change of pace from the requisite baroque processional/recessional music (which, don’t get me wrong, I like), an a cappella quartet singing a medley of New York songs. No Rockettes, sadly.

The Bryce Jordan Center can’t hold a candle to a pretty green space, such as the one at UVM, or to an art deco landmark like RCMH, but in most other ways, I came away from this little commencement road trip with greater appreciation of Penn State’s approach to the annual send-off: I particularly like the moments when our students are called upon to thank their parents and loved ones and separately, the august members of the faculty (in other words, guys like me). Having all the Penn State alumni in the crowd rise and be recognized is also a nice touch.  

My recommendations for PSU: Take it outside (with a foul-weather backup plan), add a little musical razzmatazz (it might be hard to come up with a medley of State College-themed songs) and pass out bingo cards, in case of an outbreak of commencement clichés.