In his weekly column, President Barry Mills describes Senior Week and the buildup to Bowdoin’s 205th Commencement.
Director of Events and Summer Programs Tony Sprague instructs volunteers at Commencement rehearsal
This is Senior Week at the College. Most of the first-years, sophomores, and juniors have gone home for the summer, and our seniors are enjoying their bittersweet last days as undergraduates at Bowdoin. There are all kind of events for our seniors, ranging from ventures into the Maine outdoors rafting or lounging at Popham Beach, to other activities that strike fear into the heart of a college president like the Casco Bay boat cruise and the “pub crawls” in Portland and Brunswick. My fervent hope is that everyone makes their way safely to the steps of the Walker Art Building on Saturday morning to receive their diplomas.
I sat yesterday in front of the Chapel speaking with one of my very favorite students who is about to graduate from the College. She described for me the emotions she and her friends are experiencing this week—from elation to anxiety—as they relive all the emotional ups and downs of four years of college. Another senior told me the whole week feels pretty weird—it’s like we’re kicking them off the campus. A third senior said it’s time—time to leave Bowdoin and start a new chapter of life, even though he had to admit that leaving Bowdoin is both scary and sad. I have also received many, many e-mails and letters from very grateful parents and students reflecting on the past four years at Bowdoin. This is clearly a very emotional period for so many on our campus.
All the while, there has been a lot of last minute business to conduct before we can all assemble on the Quad Saturday morning for Bowdoin’s 205th Commencement. Faculty carefully grading final exams, papers, and honors projects by Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. so that the program can be printed accurately listing the names of our graduating seniors, their Latin honors, and their awards.
Practicing the diploma "hand-off"
The facilities crew erecting the tents Wednesday on the plinth of the Museum and delivering a couple thousand chairs for Saturday morning. Countless administrators logging on hourly to Weather.com to check the forecast for Saturday morning—one moment sunny and 72, and the next, cloudy and 65 with a chance of rain (it is Maine, after all). And the folks in dining gearing up for the extravaganzas of a final lobster bake on Friday night for graduating seniors and their families, and the graduation feast at noon on Saturday—both on the Pickard fields and in Farley Field House.
Even the president has been very busy over the past few weeks getting ready for Commencement. Much to the amazement of my counterparts at other colleges, I do, in fact, personally sign each and every diploma. I have an assembly line system (see the video below), but it still takes about two hours to sign them all. I’m not sure if any of you have had to sign your name 454 times in two sittings, but at times I feel like I forget my own name!
I also have to practice my Latin. Tradition dictates that our Board chair, Peter Small, and I recite a few passages of Latin during the Commencement exercises. Peter gets the easy part: one word. But I have several sentences to read. I have to admit that I have never received rave reviews from the Classics scholars in the crowd. My accent is pretty bad—it seems like the only time my native Rhode Island accent reappears is when I read Hebrew aloud or recite this Latin. I fear for my performance again this year.
And then there is the matter of the length of the Commencement exercise. I do hand a diploma and personally shake the hand of each graduate. I happen to know there are faculty in the crowd who time this part of the process, and I can usually see our Senior Vice President for Development, Bill Torrey, out of the corner of my eye pacing the sidelines while glancing repeatedly at his watch. Well, we have a new procedure for the assembled masses this weekend that we hope will make the process more efficient, while preserving our tradition of a personal and intimate graduation ceremony. A group of us practiced on the Museum steps Tuesday morning, and I’m pretty sure we have it down. The proof will be in the Commencement video available next week.
Finally, there are the speeches to be composed and delivered over the next couple of days. I am worried that my messages may be filled with a bit more concern and uncertainty than in the past, but that is probably fitting for our times. We will print some of these talks here on the Bowdoin Daily Sun. And as promised, I will provide details of this year’s admissions results when I speak to our guests.
Worry and uncertainty aside, my message to our students will be that we are confident in them and confident in their future. These graduating students are an accomplished crowd ready for life after Bowdoin. I will remind them that life after Bowdoin is actually pretty great. When Hyde wrote about college as “the best four years of your life,” I suspect he had at least two ideas in mind. Sure, these four years at Bowdoin have been fantastic for most and will provide wonderful memories for the rest of our graduates’ lives. But they have also provided the best opportunity anyone can ever have to live, learn, and prepare together for a productive and rewarding lifetime. As we organize our sendoff for the Class of 2010, I have high hopes and every confidence that they will live up to the promise we have observed in them over the last four years. They are all well prepared in the Bowdoin tradition for lives of accomplishment, principled leadership, and success in whatever tasks they undertake. And that’s the “best” any of us can hope for.
In the coming weeks, I will continue to offer my thoughts on subjects interesting to me or of importance to the College, but I want to hear your ideas too. If there is a subject you’d like me to address, send me an e-mail at mills@bowdoin.edu
Barry Mills on the Countdown to Commencement
Director of Events and Summer Programs Tony Sprague instructs volunteers at Commencement rehearsal
This is Senior Week at the College. Most of the first-years, sophomores, and juniors have gone home for the summer, and our seniors are enjoying their bittersweet last days as undergraduates at Bowdoin. There are all kind of events for our seniors, ranging from ventures into the Maine outdoors rafting or lounging at Popham Beach, to other activities that strike fear into the heart of a college president like the Casco Bay boat cruise and the “pub crawls” in Portland and Brunswick. My fervent hope is that everyone makes their way safely to the steps of the Walker Art Building on Saturday morning to receive their diplomas.
I sat yesterday in front of the Chapel speaking with one of my very favorite students who is about to graduate from the College. She described for me the emotions she and her friends are experiencing this week—from elation to anxiety—as they relive all the emotional ups and downs of four years of college. Another senior told me the whole week feels pretty weird—it’s like we’re kicking them off the campus. A third senior said it’s time—time to leave Bowdoin and start a new chapter of life, even though he had to admit that leaving Bowdoin is both scary and sad. I have also received many, many e-mails and letters from very grateful parents and students reflecting on the past four years at Bowdoin. This is clearly a very emotional period for so many on our campus.
All the while, there has been a lot of last minute business to conduct before we can all assemble on the Quad Saturday morning for Bowdoin’s 205th Commencement. Faculty carefully grading final exams, papers, and honors projects by Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. so that the program can be printed accurately listing the names of our graduating seniors, their Latin honors, and their awards.
Practicing the diploma "hand-off"
The facilities crew erecting the tents Wednesday on the plinth of the Museum and delivering a couple thousand chairs for Saturday morning. Countless administrators logging on hourly to Weather.com to check the forecast for Saturday morning—one moment sunny and 72, and the next, cloudy and 65 with a chance of rain (it is Maine, after all). And the folks in dining gearing up for the extravaganzas of a final lobster bake on Friday night for graduating seniors and their families, and the graduation feast at noon on Saturday—both on the Pickard fields and in Farley Field House.
Even the president has been very busy over the past few weeks getting ready for Commencement. Much to the amazement of my counterparts at other colleges, I do, in fact, personally sign each and every diploma. I have an assembly line system (see the video below), but it still takes about two hours to sign them all. I’m not sure if any of you have had to sign your name 454 times in two sittings, but at times I feel like I forget my own name!
I also have to practice my Latin. Tradition dictates that our Board chair, Peter Small, and I recite a few passages of Latin during the Commencement exercises. Peter gets the easy part: one word. But I have several sentences to read. I have to admit that I have never received rave reviews from the Classics scholars in the crowd. My accent is pretty bad—it seems like the only time my native Rhode Island accent reappears is when I read Hebrew aloud or recite this Latin. I fear for my performance again this year.
And then there is the matter of the length of the Commencement exercise. I do hand a diploma and personally shake the hand of each graduate. I happen to know there are faculty in the crowd who time this part of the process, and I can usually see our Senior Vice President for Development, Bill Torrey, out of the corner of my eye pacing the sidelines while glancing repeatedly at his watch. Well, we have a new procedure for the assembled masses this weekend that we hope will make the process more efficient, while preserving our tradition of a personal and intimate graduation ceremony. A group of us practiced on the Museum steps Tuesday morning, and I’m pretty sure we have it down. The proof will be in the Commencement video available next week.
Finally, there are the speeches to be composed and delivered over the next couple of days. I am worried that my messages may be filled with a bit more concern and uncertainty than in the past, but that is probably fitting for our times. We will print some of these talks here on the Bowdoin Daily Sun. And as promised, I will provide details of this year’s admissions results when I speak to our guests.
Worry and uncertainty aside, my message to our students will be that we are confident in them and confident in their future. These graduating students are an accomplished crowd ready for life after Bowdoin. I will remind them that life after Bowdoin is actually pretty great. When Hyde wrote about college as “the best four years of your life,” I suspect he had at least two ideas in mind. Sure, these four years at Bowdoin have been fantastic for most and will provide wonderful memories for the rest of our graduates’ lives. But they have also provided the best opportunity anyone can ever have to live, learn, and prepare together for a productive and rewarding lifetime. As we organize our sendoff for the Class of 2010, I have high hopes and every confidence that they will live up to the promise we have observed in them over the last four years. They are all well prepared in the Bowdoin tradition for lives of accomplishment, principled leadership, and success in whatever tasks they undertake. And that’s the “best” any of us can hope for.
In the coming weeks, I will continue to offer my thoughts on subjects interesting to me or of importance to the College, but I want to hear your ideas too. If there is a subject you’d like me to address, send me an e-mail at mills@bowdoin.edu