A heart full of plans

I had a dream last night that I fingered Lana Del Ray.

Our university president wrote us to say that next year graduation will not combine all of the colleges, because, basically, last year was a fiasco. 

My roommate heard someone say, “I’m a “W” and my name was called at 4pm.” The ceremony this year began at 9 in the morning. It was the first, and apparently last, time that UVM will try to save $100,000 by consolidating colleges into an absolutely insane 2,000-graduate event.

His email is hilarious and worth sharing. Bolding by me.

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“With Commencement 2011 eight months away, I want to provide the University community with an important update: following consultation with governance groups, deans of the colleges and schools, and others, I have decided that we will return to the pre-2010 format of one main ceremony followed by individual college and school ceremonies. The single academic ceremony we piloted this past spring will remain, for the modern era, a one-time experiment. 

I want to add that that experiment was supported by extraordinary—and in many cases superlative—efforts by countless members of the University community. My heartfelt thanks go to all who worked so hard to carry off Commencement in the traditional (but long-tabled) format of a single ceremony. It began splendidly with the massed sunlit array of graduates, faculty, family and friends on the Green. But the ceremony dissipated its grand opening effect as the long morning wore on into the afternoon. I am sincerely sorry that there were many who understandably found the experience, in the end, disappointing. ”