Time for Elgar

My annual bittersweet evening is here.  On the one hand, lots of students graduated, so I am very, very happy for them; on the other hand, I am going to miss quite a few of them.

Graduation ceremony notes:

1) Martha Nussbaum was the Speaker.  I was stunned at her speech; literally stunned.  A pure, unadulterated, paint-by-numbers speech.  There wasn’t a moment in the whole speech that rose above platitude about the glories of the liberal arts.  The delivery was flat; the content nonexistent.  Now, don’t get me wrong—I was prepared for annoying conventional leftist platitudes which would cause my colleagues to stand up and cheer at the usual bromides—so I wasn’t disappointed.  And I was glad to hear a defense of the liberal arts.  But, mostly, I was stunned at the complete lack of anything which would make it obvious that she was even remotely aware that she was speaking at a graduation ceremony and expected to say something interesting or at least faux-interesting, that she was supposed to make the students, you know, laugh or cheer or at least pay attention.  Even my colleagues were bored.  And the students?—I didn’t see a single one of them who looked like she was paying any attention at all. 

2) The student speaker was great, though—and that was a surprise.  The student speakers are usually pretty bad.   Over time, she has some potential to be a truly excellent speaker.

3) The rest of the speakers were just there—they only talked for a couple of minutes each, and none of them said anything remarkable.

4) Lynn hugged every grad after handing over the diploma.  Now that is a change in style.   Lynn likes to hug, by the way.  She is always hugging people.  

5) Lynn's robe was bright; very bright.  I had two people ask me why she had four stripes on her sleeves.  The standard Ph.D. robe has only three stripes.  So, I looked it up.  The fourth stripe is for the President of the College.  I never noticed before that the college President gets an extra stripe.  (I have no idea if Joanne had one.) Academic regalia is really weird. For years I have been trying to convince myself to show up to class one day and lecture in my regalia just like in Olden Times.  

5) And now I just miss my students.