Do you SMU seniors care if you receive your actual SMU diploma at the May graduation ceremony? Some of you (and even some faculty) don’t care since they find ceremonies boring or silly, designed to placate parents and please photographers.
For lots of us, however, diploma ceremonies are a hallmark of “The University” in terms of substance as well as style. Commencement honors not only your individual achievement but also celebrates the very continuity of universities. Academic ceremonies provide minimal demarcation lines between student and (gulp) independent life.
From medieval times, the commencement ceremony has been the moment at which academic degrees (including honors) and honorary degrees are conferred. For undergraduates, it marks the point-after all your work has been seen and judged-that you are considered worthy to join “the company of educated men and women.” You dress for the occasion according to medieval tradition in a cap and gown, with tassels placed on the right front side of your cap before your degree is conferred. As soon as bachelor degrees are conferred, the presiding academic officer, usually the president, instructs you to move the tassel to the left front side to signify your new status as a graduate.
Starting this May, however, SMU had better urge you to let your tassels wobble indecisively on your cap since the administration is getting rid of you before they tabulate your total record. Graduation is meaningful in part because it is absolute: you know that you are being graduated. If degrees are not yet tabulated, they cannot be conferred. Someone may tell you that you are now SMU graduates, but you’d better read the fine print disclaimers. You will receive a “ceremony participation gift” but (unless these new plans change) you won’t receive a diploma.
For at least a generation in Dedman College, departmental diploma ceremonies have been intimate and laden with powerful meaning for our graduates and their families. In Dedman College, each department holds an afternoon diploma ceremony at which each student is individually discussed as he or she is handed the official diploma. For students taking degrees in Medieval Studies, we write and deliver citations in Latin (families get English translations). Dedman faculty members spend a lot of time thinking about apt and amusing remarks that are meaningful to each student. (Some few students are allowed to “walk” if they are just short of completing the degree, but only a few.)
SMU’s central administration now threatens to make a universal mockery of our real graduation by providing our students with “mock” diplomas: in essence, all students will “walk.” The real diploma will be mailed to real graduates some weeks after the ceremony. Without real diplomas to give, I predict, departmental diploma ceremonies, now to be called recognition ceremonies, will slowly cease. I know some students who chose SMU after watching a sibling or friend participate in these community-bonding diploma ceremonies. If we lose this bond, both the college and the university will suffer a loss of goodwill.
When the faculty of Dedman College heard rumors that there was a move by the central administration to abolish our time-honored habit of granting real diplomas at May graduation, we voted with near unanimity at our winter faculty meeting (December 5, 2008) that, at least for Dedman College graduates, “official diplomas continue to be available for distribution at May graduation as they have in the past, and that Latin honors continue to be based on the student’s complete undergraduate record.”
Why is any change being contemplated? Our understanding is that the central administration, fearful of more instances of student drug and alcohol abuse, has decided to shorten to four days the period between final exams and spring graduation in order to get you off campus and out of town as soon as possible. This punishment is unnecessary since, even with our tight schedule, final grades can be calculated and diplomas can be produced.
It is quite true that those who complete their degrees in August or December never receive their diplomas in person unless they postpone and come to May graduation. That’s because we don’t have real graduations in August and December. I’ve never heard of any general undergraduate August celebration, and (until very recently) those who completed their degrees by December were celebrated at something awkwardly titled “December Recognition Ceremony.” Now the central administration has changed the name but not the substance of that ceremony. Until the last couple of years, faculty members weren’t even invited to be visibly present at the December event. Supposedly all that was needed were some central administrators, a few trustees, and a little hoopla. As the speaker for the second December event, I experienced this hollow pseudo-ceremony first-hand. I’ve urged ever since that we abandon it. The only real SMU graduation occurs in May.
If students finish their academic work on time, and faculty submit their senior grades on time, then SMU central has just enough time (even with the current tight schedule) to prepare diplomas and determine actual recipients of undergraduate honors degrees-on time. I don’t care how many other colleges mail out their diplomas: lots of places (not just colleges) prefer flash to substance. Feel-good showmanship doesn’t substitute for substantial ceremonies. Even Las Vegas weddings require a certificate. After finishing your work on your degree, you deserve to receive your SMU diploma, in person, at graduation. Your faculty wants you to receive these degrees at a proper commencement. Don’t leave without it.
Dr. Wheeler is an associate professor of English and director of Medieval Studies at SMU. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
