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My semester is finally wrapping up here in Claremont: I'm hoping to have the last of my grades in today. Like last year, I attended two commencement ceremonies over the weekend, but I opted for Pitzer instead of CMC on Saturday this time. Let me tell you, wearing academic robes while sitting on stage in 100 degree heat for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon was not fun (thankfully, there was a bottle of water at every seat). I stayed after the ceremony long enough to congratulate one of my students, and then fled back to air conditioned bliss.
The Scripps commencement was in the morning on Sunday instead of the afternoon, which was substantially more comfortable. They were also kind enough to have fans running at the sides of the stage (and in the areas near the middle of the stage where the big fans didn't reach, each faculty seat had a little battery-powered fan provided along with the usual water bottle and program). Scripps has faculty march in reverse order of seniority, which meant that for the second year running I was at the front of a line. (I shared some jokes with the guy at the front of the other line about leading the faculty in a complicated interweaving pattern, much to the horror of the faculty marshals who were actually leading the procession. They seemed to think that "follow the person in front of you" was about as much as the faculty could handle.)
One difference from last year's commencement at Scripps was a substantial shift to simply cheering and clapping for graduating friends: last year, many students were greeted on stage not with cheers but with a chorus of "yips" from their peers. I'm not sure what led to the change this time; perhaps the student body decided that they didn't want their final Scripps experience to be imitating a pack of manic Pomeranians. (Kim hypothesized that it goes in cycles between "preserve the tradition" years and "we sound like the Yip Yips from Sesame Street" years.) Whatever the reason, I enjoyed the day (even though it's sad to see your students leave).
The Scripps commencement was in the morning on Sunday instead of the afternoon, which was substantially more comfortable. They were also kind enough to have fans running at the sides of the stage (and in the areas near the middle of the stage where the big fans didn't reach, each faculty seat had a little battery-powered fan provided along with the usual water bottle and program). Scripps has faculty march in reverse order of seniority, which meant that for the second year running I was at the front of a line. (I shared some jokes with the guy at the front of the other line about leading the faculty in a complicated interweaving pattern, much to the horror of the faculty marshals who were actually leading the procession. They seemed to think that "follow the person in front of you" was about as much as the faculty could handle.)
One difference from last year's commencement at Scripps was a substantial shift to simply cheering and clapping for graduating friends: last year, many students were greeted on stage not with cheers but with a chorus of "yips" from their peers. I'm not sure what led to the change this time; perhaps the student body decided that they didn't want their final Scripps experience to be imitating a pack of manic Pomeranians. (Kim hypothesized that it goes in cycles between "preserve the tradition" years and "we sound like the Yip Yips from Sesame Street" years.) Whatever the reason, I enjoyed the day (even though it's sad to see your students leave).
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I'm going to graduation this year, too. The faculty will be the only ones in academic robes.