Undergraduate Commencement 2015 at UMass

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At the urging of our departmental leaders, I agreed to volunteer as a marshal at this year’s undergraduate commencement, which was held on this hot and sunny afternoon at McGuirk Stadium.  It was both a solemn and joyous occasion for the 5,500 graduates, together with their families and friends.  Our news office stated that a crowd of 20,000 attended the ceremony, and I was glad to be one of them.

Wearing our maroon polo shirts, the marshals reported to the volunteer tent at 2:45 to pick up our name tags, sashes, and emergency procedures booklet, then we eventually scattered to our respective gates to line up our students in time for the processional, which started around 4:30.  With Head Marshal Brian Carroll leading our team, I was at Gate One, with Nursing and the College of Natural Sciences, which I soon realized was one of the biggest groups.  I have to say that the students were all mellow and well-behaved; I handed out the programs and bottles of water, and kept reminding them to keep their tassels on the right and put their gowns on before they entered the stadium.  They were supposed to march in groups of four, with five groups filling each row of 20 seats.  However, I was assigned to the very back of the line, with the charge to keep the stragglers moving, so by the time we got into the stadium, the students were just walking one after the other.

Our two colleges, with Nursing wearing apricot and Natural Sciences wearing golden yellow, filled the section to the right of the center aisle; Engineering (orange) and the School of Management (drab beige) sat to our right.  Left of the center aisle sat BDIC, CPE, UWW, Public Health (salmon pink), and Humanities and Fine Arts (white); to their left sat Education (light blue) and Social and Behavioral Sciences (golden yellow).  I took a seat behind the students, in front of guest seating, and followed the ceremony in my program Here’s one of the two photos I took, this one of the Parade of Flags:

UM-Grad-2015-1This was the order of events:

  • Processional
  • Parade of International Flags
  • Presentation of the Colors
  • National Anthem
  • Remarks by Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, President Robert Caret, and Trustee Henry Thomas III
  • Student Speaker
  • 21st Century Leaders
  • Jack Welch Scholars
  • Distinguished Achievement Awards
  • Honorary Degree
  • Keynote Address
  • Presentation of Degree Candidates
  • Conferring of Degrees
  • Alumni Association Greetings
  • Alma Mater
  • Recessional

The student speaker, Erin Mabee, was very good; she urged her classmates to believe that they really could do the impossible.  And the speaker, Neil deGrasse Tyson, gave an excellent speech.  (In fact, he came up on my Twitter feed in a tweet from Global Citizen about commencement speeches — obviously, UMass snagged a prize.)  I didn’t take notes on his speech, but I know I’ll remember at least a couple of the points he made, such as that your past doesn’t define you, that science and education are important, that in a democracy we elect our own leaders, and that we all need to create our own role models since they won’t necessarily exist.

My second photo is of the moment everyone was waiting for, when the degrees were officially conferred and graduates could shift their tassels to the left (the main stage is at the south end of the stadium).

UM-Grad-2015-2At the end of the ceremony, around 6:30, we had to hold the students back as the faculty marched out, but then the happy graduates broke away to join their family and friends and continue celebrating the momentous occasion.  Congratulations to the UMass Class of 2015!