My college Convocation was Friday night. As much as a lot of us like to think that the College of Public Programs contains only the School of Public Affairs, it does not. It also includes the School of Social Work, the School of Criminal Justice, and the School of Community Resources and Development. With only 4 schools, and some of the programs being brand new, you would think that convocation would be short. It was not, but at least it started on time.
Overall, the convocation ceremony was nice. The MC was Dr. Timothy from the School of Community Resources and Development. He was goofy, which was nice that he saw the absurdity in some of what was going on. He also looked goofy. He looked like he was straight out of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It was awesome. If you want a really cool set of Ph.D regalia, get your Ph.D from the University of Waterloo.
Everything was going along just fine, the speaker was excellent, but don't ask me what he was talking about, I don't remember, and then came the giving of diplomas. It took forever. Clearly the professors didn't know what they were doing at first, they all looked confused, but soon they got the hang of it. On one side of the stage the School of Social Work, and School of Public Affairs received their diplomas, and the other two schools were on the other side of the stage. About an hour into the reading of the names, the School of Social Work was still awarding MSWs, while the other side of the stage had switched schools. My advisor estimated that there were at least 250 MSW candidates, and then you had all the BSW candidates. If you ask me, the School of Social Work needs to be more selective in who they admit, and maybe limit it to 50 MSW students a year. Just a thought. Also, I think the School of Social Work needs their own convocation. It took so long, that my friend who is 8 months pregnant started joking that she would go into labor before she graduated, and it did feel like that. One of the best names called during the night was a student named Cherry Pink. I kid you not.
Every time we thought we saw an end to the Social work line, it just grew longer, but eventually it was the School of Public Affairs turn to walk across the stage. Keep in mind that my school is very small. There were maybe 100 of us, and at least half were graduate students. By the time we lined up to receive our diplomas, all of the other graduates were walking out of the ceremony. I guess they had something better to do than be respectful for those of us who waited patiently. It was rude, but what made it worse, was that they didn't just walk out of the ceremony and congregate in the hall. They congregated in the ballroom and started talking so people couldn't hear, or see. I don't know what it looked like from the audience, but from the front of the room it looked classless. I actually made me a little mad.
At the end of the ceremony, the Sun Devil Singers were supposed to sing the Alma Mater song. BTW, what is an Alma Mater Song? but the tech people sang a prerecorded version, and the Sun Devil Singers looked really confused. It was amusing. The lyrics of this song are:
Where The Bold Saguaros
Raise Their Arms On High
Praying Strength For Brave Tomorrows
From The Western Sky
Where Eternal Mountains
Kneel At Sunset's Gate
Here We Hail Thee, Alma Mater
Arizona State
Now try to sing it in a slow love ballad type way, and you'll get the picture. It is weird.
After graduation I go some pictures with the Phoenix sky line in the background, and we all went home to put Ella to bed and eat dinner. It was a long day, but I had finally 100% graduated.
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