Cap and Gown

Tucson, Arizona. The University of Arizona has its graduation ceremonies this week. Many colleges (the university has quite a few) have their own events limited to their own students. The College of Education had its ceremony yesterday morning at Centennial Hall for both graduate and undergraduate students.

Wearing a cap and gown for the first time in 26 years, I was moved to have an experience so completely different from that which occurs getting that first degree while so young. Back then life occurred as an infinite sea of possibilities, and it seemed like we were the center of the world. From the late forties instead of the early twenties, I saw those feelings again yesterday among the undergraduates about to cross the stage and turn their tassles before beaming parents wiping away tears. I wonder what roads they will traverse, what bright spots and dark despair lies before them on their version of the 26 year path that took me from where they stood yesterday to where I stand today. Where, but more importantly, who will they be in 26 years?

My first degree came from a college of engineering with graduates destined primarily for corporations. Yesterday’s ceremony graduated those pursuing careers in education, bright mostly young faces eager to commit themselves to educating both the young and not so young, some training in physical education, special education, and (yours truly) higher education. As I listened to the speeches and statements of the speakers, it dawned on me that I was amongst those truly committed, in a way I’ve not seen often, to helping others, and profoundly so. I am talking about the expansion and development of the very way others see the world, their associates, their friends, their loved ones, and their lives. Such perspectives reflect a different universe from the obsession with making and accumulating money, and by the latter I refer not to the engineers of 26 years ago, but to the characters in a more recent past.

In a way difficult to capture with words, I suddenly had the experience of belonging, of being with souls not unlike my own. I certainly took the long way home, but it is starting to look like I am getting there. Many of the words spoken on stage were intelligent, articulate, and touching, but I was most struck by the concluding remarks of an undergraduate student completing her bachelor’s degree and destined for a classroom somewhere in our K-12 system. Speaking of teachers and teaching, she said, "In the eyes of the world you may be one person, but in the eyes of one person, you may be the world."