Sunday, April 27, 2008

First "One DU" Commencement

Waiting for Mom to emerge from the arena after the ceremony


I would not have gone to commencement at all if not for the fact that I hired a photographer who was not familiar with Davenport University. So I thought I'd better attend so I could make sure he got the right people in the right shots.

It was billed the "first one-Du commencement ceremony," in other words it's the first time that grads from all of our 21 locations converged in one place for a single commencement ceremony.

Thirteen hundred grads walked, receiving master's, bachelor's and associates degrees, plus diplomas. We also conferred two honorary doctorate degrees during the ceremony.

We took a chance by not setting a limit on tickets, and nearly filled the 8,000+-seat Van Andel Arena. But all came off without a hitch, and what I feared could be a long hard day-into-night turned out to be a wonderful afternoon to mark this very special occasion for the grads and their families.

Special kudos to the commencement team who put this grand, gargantuan event together, especially Director of Records Robin Kauffman, who (I believe) took on most of the logistics and planning, and to VP for Academic Services Dave Fleming, who accomplished the task of reading out all those names (impressively correctly!) with humor and flair.

Looking forward to next year when we'll graduate the first class to start as freshmen at the new main campus in Grand Rapids. And good luck and good life to all of you new grads of DU!

-Cross-posted at Things I've Seen

No comments: