UMUC’s 2015 Commencement

While I attended my two daughter’s college commencements as well as a niece’s college commencement I had never been to one directly related to me until this last weekend.

I was at Fort Dix when my University of Maryland College Park class graduated, to explain this would require telling a long story about breaking up with my then college girlfriend and having to submit final papers two months after the end of the semester, which I will not bore anyone with the retelling.

I did not attend my commencement when I received my Masters in International Management (MIM) from the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) for reasons I am not sure I can articulate, chalk it up to my anti-social attitude which sometimes (most times?) comes to the surface.

However, after attending the UMUC 2015 Commencement this last weekend, I regret having missed those earlier events, something I will have to keep in mind going forward.

I do not believe I have written much about the job I started in January of this year, as the Program Chair for the Information Systems Management major in the undergraduate school, cleverly called The Undergraduate School (TUS), at UMUC.

Amusingly I was one of the first Information Systems Management majors from the College Park campus (that first commencement I missed). I joke that my career arc seems to resemble the first Vanguard launch, the one where the rocket went straight up and then straight back down and blew up.

I have duplicated the first two steps, straight up and straight down; hopefully I will avoid the blowing up part. I will return from time to time to my current Program Chair job in future posts, but here will focus on the commencement.

The commencement was held at the Xfinity Center at College Park.  Bachelor and Master’s candidates attended one of three ceremonies: Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, or Sunday afternoon. I participated in the Saturday morning ceremony, walking in with other UMUC faculty.

This was the first time therefore I wore commencement robes (what did we wear for high school commencement, it was so long ago), a hat (tam?) appropriate to having a Master’s degree, and a hood with the UMUC and major’s colors (my highest degree was from UMUC). At least I think that is how it works, further research is probably necessary here.

Greetings were offered by Tom McMillen who is a member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents and most important (to me) was on the University of Maryland basketball team when I was going to school there.

The commencement speaker was Ike Leggett who is the County Executive of my home county, Montgomery County Maryland. I cannot really do justice to the talk that Leggett gave. It was an inspiration discussion of how he grew up, what he had to overcome to get an education, the support his family and community gave him which helped make that journey possibility, and the opportunities that many, but not enough, have to make something of themselves.

The most significant part of the morning, for me at least, was what happened next. First, all of the candidates who were receiving master’s degrees came up in a long line, were announced, and went across the stage one-at-a-time, and then all of the candidates who were receiving a bachelor’s degree went through the same process.

This took perhaps 1.5 to 2 hours to complete. On the surface what might not seem remarkable and inspiring, a couple of thousand people walking across a stage, was. In particular, if I may be allowed to show my bias, the longer group of those getting a bachelor’s degree was inspirational.

The group of graduating students were remarkable diverse, a significant percentage were people of color; but there was a great range of ethnic background, immigrant and native-born students, a great range of ages and significant percentages of both men and women.

I suspect that many had at some point in their life thought they would never get a college degree and now they had. They had to overcome complicated personal lives, demands placed on them by family and work obligations, the learning curve not just of their major but how to be a college student. When each person’s name was called out, often there were shouts and cheers from the audience expressing the pride and joy of family and friends.

After the ceremony, I mentioned to one of the other faculty that I was reminded why our work is so rewarding (when it is not being frustrating) through the commencement activities and participants. I am lucky to have the opportunity to play a role in changing lives, most of us do not get that opportunity.

Congratulations to the UMUC 2015 graduates, I look forward to participating next year.