2005-06-01 - 11:01 p.m.
As of Sunday, I is a kollege graduate. Commencement involves a good deal of rigmarole (you can watch some of the church drama in this video archive), most of which I didn�t really care about. I mean I�ve seen graduation ceremonies, my friends�, my sister�s, etc. I know the drill � there�s the invocation, the benediction, the words of wisdom, the grand procession, the consecration, and on and on.
What I really did want to do was walk through the magic gate. The Van Wickle gate to the Brown college green is only opened twice a year, to let new students in and to let graduates out. I wanted to go out walking on my own two feet, the same way I came in. To do this involved a very elaborate morning procession, with graduating students snaking across the green. I got a wheelchair for the occasion. My sister did an outstanding job of pushing me and my friend Jill accompanied us.
I think I created a rather dramatic stir when I got up out of the wheelchair and balanced using Jill�s shoulder to walk out the gate. Professors, parents, and alums were lined up outside the gate cheering all of us on. A surprising number shouted out my name. I guess I�m now mildly famous after this incredibly nice profile in the school paper.
We went down to the First Baptist Meeting House (which it really is; Roger Williams apparently started the denomination) for the actual moment of graduation when you flip your cap�s tassel to the left. Of course, this was down a steep hill which my sister navigated gracefully and in some unnoticed back entrance, so she ended up circling the whole church pushing me. Much respect to her. There was a very cool oration from a graduating Alabama farm boy and some dean chanted some Latin mumbo-jumbo and we graduated. Wow.
I even went to the Urban Studies departmental ceremony in the afternoon, mostly cause I�d told my parents I�d be there and also they were giving me my actual diploma. It was MC�ed by the very dynamic Prof. Jim Morone (in whose class I unexpectedly got an A after finally finishing my incomplete term paper) and Providence Mayor David Cicilline gave a speech. Now, when I went up to get my diploma, I fell against the mayor turning back around, but he caught me and was pretty cool about the whole thing. Gets my vote.
Am I older? Wiser? Or just more officially educated? When my friend Zack finished law school, he made a solemn promise that he would never learn again. Another friend noticed a �How to Get into Law School� book on top of my toilet a few months ago and asked if I was applying. I thought about it for a minute and had a profound and unexpected realization:
�No. No, I�m not.�
�Good. I mean Geoff, you�re not really a school kind of guy. You�re a real world kind of guy.�
I think that�s quite right. Maybe I was a school kind of guy when I was younger (although people who knew me then have suggested that was never really the case). But I�m really not now. I�ll get into my post-graduation plans later, but school isn�t involved. I can�t make the exact same solemn promise, as maybe I would like an MUP or even MBA someday, but not for a while. Real world for the next several years at least.
I also can�t promise to never learn again, because after graduation, just like even before I went back to school, just like in school, just like always, I will learn every fucking day. I hope you will do the same. I�ve loved the opportunity to learn in college and now it�s time to continue learning beyond it.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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