Celebrating Graduation...

Well, this isn't a Stampin' Up! post; it's a post about my other world of academia.

My favorite part of the year, and my favorite ceremony, is graduation.

I've come to realize that not all professors share my enthusiasm for watching their students celebrate this milestone. I've attended every graduation ceremony I could since I got my doctorate and started teaching myself. And each time, I get one or more colleagues who offer their sympathy that I've drawn "graduation duty." I've gotten suggestions to bring papers to grade with, or a paperback slipped up a sleeve of my robes, or other materials to take away the tedium of the speeches and the calling of the names as students walk across the stage.

I find it rude.

Maybe that's because I have a slightly different perspective on graduation than some. I earned my education. I paid for it myself, with burns from deep-fat fryers, sweat from midnight deadlines at the student newspaper, many versions of "Twinkle, Twinkle" sung for four-year-olds at the campus day care center, and hard studying to keep my four-year full tuition scholarship. I was one of the first in my family on the Mattson side to get a bachelor's degree, and I value it. I recognize the blood, sweat and tears it takes to get that degree.

And I believe we all should celebrate it.

Both universities at which I've worked as a professor have student bodies comprised of working-class students. Very few of these students have a great deal of family money to help them over the hurdles of tuition and books. Most are working in addition to going to school; some have families; some are single parents, reaching for that degree.

We in the professoriate should honor them for their hard work and the significant achievement of attaining a bachelor's degree. They could have given up on it at any time. We could have given up on them.

But they didn't, and we didn't.

And that's worth celebrating.