Orange Pages: Stillwater's Little Black Book

From the Boardroom

Hargis agrees: graduation is boring

7275
Jeff Campbell

And you thought dirt was old...

OSU President Burns Hargis said during his meeting with the O’Collegian Editorial Board on Thursday that he wants to improve commencement exercises.

We’re not quite sure what he’s talking about.

We all enjoy watching thousands of strangers shake hands with important people we’ve never met.

And everyone loves a good graduation speaker. We’re sure everyone vividly remembers what Gov. Brad Henry and Lt. Gov. Jari Askins said last year.

Right.

After Hargis left, we sat and brainstormed exactly how you could make graduation more than a three-hour nap where you wake up to send text messages to the person sitting next to you.

First, a different kind of graduation speaker. Since Orange Peel no longer brings a comedian to campus, why not graduation?

The point of the graduation speaker shouldn’t be to teach us something — we’ve been learning for the past four years. Give us a laugh. We’ll enter the real world soon afterward where joy is limited.

For example, Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the popular comedy Family Guy, has spoke at graduations at Harvard University, George Washington University and the University of Texas, among others.

Secondly, Hargis said one idea he had was to maybe break the larger ceremony down into smaller settings, maybe split it up among colleges.

We like the idea of decreasing the amount of mispronounced names we have to hear.

The College of Arts & Sciences, the largest college, would still have a huge ceremony, but it would be less huge than the 3,000 students at the typical graduation.

Hargis said the main problem with having smaller ceremonies is that there aren’t indoor locations on campus that would cater to this idea.

If Mother Nature behaved herself, we wouldn’t have to worry about rain.

The suggestion of renting circus tents came up while we were talking, but only if randomly selected students had to jump through flaming hoops to get their diplomas.

The only solution we could think of was to have the graduations in sections of Gallagher-Iba Arena at different times.

We are a board of only seven students.

If the other 20,000 of you would like to suggest how to improve graduation, feel free to let us know at letters@ocolly.com.

—The O’Collegian Editorial Board

This story was published September 5th, 2008 under Editorial Cartoons, Opinion. Permalink.

Submit a comment

Comments are moderated by OColly.com and may not appear until they have been reviewed and deemed appropriate for posting. Also, due to the volume of comments we receive, not all comments will be posted. E-mail addresses are not published. Mandatory fields are marked *.

  • The Daily O'Collegian wants you!


  • Stillwater, OK

    Fair

    Friday, Nov 21
    Fair
    Currently: 41˚ F
    Feels Like: 36˚ F
    Hi: N/A˚, Lo: 28˚

    weather feed courtesy of weather.com - thanks!

  • Stillwater Summit Co.


  • PDF for November 21, 2008

    Today's Paper
  • UndergraduateUniversities.com


  • OColly.com Poll

    Do you think same-sex couples should be allowed to get married?

    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...
  • MyApartmentMap.com

  • Play in Popup
    Podcasts
  • Audio Podcasts

  • Recent Comments

    • Letters to the editor (11)
      • Sammy: Steve, The fight for rights are the same. When one assummes that being gay is a...
      • Bandwagon Patriot: Yeah guys, I’m all for ostracizing a minority of people...
      • Cat: Women, blacks, other religions… Many people have had to fight for their...
      • Amie: Steve, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Even Coretta Scott King said...
      • JM: If you want to attack a history professor you better get your facts straight. Even...
      • Steve: Trent, you can’t possibly equate race and sexual preference. The fight for...
      • Trent: o yea…. you ca be christian and gay… it doesnt always happen but it...
      • Trent: the pledge of allegiance was written by a group of socialists to get more...
    • Stillwater citizens, students protest Prop. 8 decision in multi-state demonstration (4)
      • Amie: Marriage is about love and commitment with gender being unimportant. It’s...
      • Unknown: Marriage is between a man and a woman… Its Adam and Eve not Adam and...