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Commencement: The End of One Journey, the Beginning of the Next
On Saturday, May 18, 2024, we will honor the CSUCI Class of 2024 at our Annual Commencement Ceremonies. Our School of Education will take part in the 9:00 AM ceremony which will include candidates who completed the BA in Early Childhood Studies, BA in Liberal Studies, Credentials, MA in Education, and MA in Educational Leadership (P12 and higher education emphasis).
Each educational endeavor we pursue has beginnings and endings. Students matriculate when they begin the course of study. When individuals complete that course of study from a university, they do not graduate. Instead, we proclaim that rite of passage unique to higher education, “Commencement.” I have always loved this term. Commencement is a brilliant amalgam of the past and the future bound in a common moment.
As my “day job” is now Dean rather than Professor, I find myself continually in ceremonial roles, frequently delivering remarks to begin or end events. In barely seven days, I have spoken at several rites of passage, marking celebrations for School of Education students. Each time, I craft original remarks based on the group I am addressing while remaining mindful that the purpose is to honor our students, not suck the oxygen out of the room with my speeches. I believe my colleagues know they can count on me for three-minute remarks on access, advocacy, caring, teaching, or any subject relevant to the audience we are honoring.
So, I invite you to take three minutes as I share with you my thoughts on Commencement.
I have often said to my students, “In the midst of your pursuit of your credential/degree, life happens.”
It is “life happening” that can derail students from completing their programs. In the midst of my doctoral studies while I was completing my dissertation in what was supposed to be the last semester of my program, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I needed to care for her, I needed to continue to raise my then-only child, Anna, and I needed to run a school district. Clearly, each of these monumental challenges could have served as a reason to set aside the dissertation—to become one of the dreaded "ABD's" of the planet: a candidate who completes "All but Dissertation." An ABD does not achieve the actual doctoral degree.
I did what I have counseled each of my students: Use the challenge—the defining moment—to move you toward, rather than away from, commencement.
I must stress that the moment-by-moment decision to complete the program we began is not without its perils. Many factors affect the next steps. It is perhaps why I frequently hear commencement speakers or Deans or Presidents of Universities praise the family and friends. Our constellation of support is often critical to our pursuit of our higher education programs. I have seen marriages end, as did my own when I undertook doctoral studies. Some of my students have faced the death of a loved one and challenges to their own health.
On the other hand, some students have added marriage or the birth of their own children to the educational plate. Every imaginable life passage becomes a part of the tapestry in the pursuit of the credential or degree. Some of these events are tragic; other joyous.
But each event returns the candidate to the question of, "Will I complete the program?" Frequently, the late-night conversations I have had with my students over the years are less about course-related questions and more about our purpose on this planet. I have alternately been big sister, mother, coach, mentor, and psychiatrist, depending on the need and the moment.
In the midst of education, life happens.
The end of the story of my doctoral studies is that I wrote most of the final chapters in hospital treatment- and waiting rooms or at a small desk next to my mother’s bed. Perhaps for me, the greatest impetus for completing it was that I knew that if I took time off, my mother would not be alive to attend my Commencement.
As an immigrant to this country, my mother’s message that education gives us possibilities recurred in my head and I needed her at that final rite of passage. I did complete the manuscript, successfully defend my dissertation, and welcome my mother at Commencement only three months before her death.
There is a photo of my father and me in my university office. None exists of my mother and me that day because she was simply too ill to stand and yet her brilliant countenance as I processed remains memorable and bittersweet.
I tip a toast toward our new Alumni Dolphins on a job well done and for finding the space to make their educations happen. I also tip a toast toward my many students from years past, who also completed their studies and with whom I have celebrated. Their appreciation of my small role in the journey is exceeded only by the privilege I have had of finally seeing them in the greater context of their lives--with their partners and spouses, their children, their parents, and their friends.
Each Commencement is a reminder of those occasions of joy and of great accomplishment. In the midst of higher education, life happened. Let the new journey in life commence.
To the many commencements of life,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
This essay is derived in part from one I wrote several years ago during my first decade as a professor in higher education. –ECR
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