Hot weather, direct sunlight, and black gowns do not go together well. Still, I'm happy with my diploma, and unlike the one I got from high school there was not a single mention of "mathemetics" or any other typos. The ceremony began with a speech from Professor Cathy Cohen. Her speech didn't thrill me (a bit too PC, humorless, and assuming the entire audience shared her liberal politics, in such a way that I'm sure all the conservatives in the audience only became more fervent in their beliefs), but which was hardly disastrous. A few things confused me, though:
1) Why no lunch after the ceremony? Champagne, strawberries, and brownies are charming, but at 1 pm, everyone, grads, extended families, and friends all are forced to scramble around Hyde Park and fight over tables at such hot spots as Edwardo's pizza on 57th. Providing some kind of food rather than drinks and dessert would probably cost the same and would make much more sense.
2) How are student marshals chosen? They're clearly people to be looked up to, but what did they do to get there? Are they the people with the highest GPAs? Who decides these things? I'm not necessarily against rankings, but it's always nice to know what the rubric is for these sorts of things. It's the mystery that gets to me.
3) Why no outside speaker? Not that I'd have liked there to be one. Just curious.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Convocation 2005
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4 comments:
Student marshalls are probably chosen at UofC, like at so many other schools, by some ranking mechanism indicating scholastic achievement (maybe GPA? how many people there finish with a 4.0 each year?). And Sean Carrol of Uncertain Principles described the weather at his school (not UofC) exactly like you did. Synchronicity in the blogosphere...
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Phoebe, the question over why no outside speaker is interesting. It's a strong enough tradition that when Pres. Clinton spoke to the convocation my third year (I was lucky enough to be there), he spoke *officially* before the ceremony even started and was not given an honorary degree (as is customary at other schools).
It has to do with the strict academic sense of the convocation (at least, that's what we were told) and that the stars of the convocation are the graduates themselves and the U of C. It's nice, I think, because only U of C-ers can really understand what it means to be a part of the university
Confessions of a former student marshal:
Marshals are chosen based on some criteria that are never really specified. GPA appears to be the most important. Marshals are repeatedly told that this is the highest honor a student at the U of C can receive. (From the university, I assume they mean.) However, those inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in their third year (rather than the fourth year, when a much larger number are inducted) are told the same thing. Both honors claim to be based on academic achievement as well as some broader notion of service or extracurricular activity. Both appear to be determined almost entirely by GPA. Oddly, however, there are people in each group who are not in the other. The only possible explanation I've heard of this is that there might be some quota of student martials from different divisions (or even departments?).
In the end, of course, grades are pretty much irrelevant, and student marshal is sort of a silly honor. The only really good part was getting to wear a better robe.
To answer a previous commenter's question, I'm pretty sure no one had a 4.0 GPA in my year at Chicago. In other years there have been 4.0s. So maybe on average one or two per year? (Getting a 4.0 in one's major is much easier, and I would imagine happens fairly often.)
Um, I think I had better maintain my anonymity in this comment.
Congratulations on graduating.
I think fewer people are elected to PBK in their third year than are made student marshals, but really, wtf are the criteria for that? Everyone I know who was in the top five for GPA my year was in both, and at least one of that group wasn't in very many student groups, so it's probably mostly GPA plus some departmental politicking?
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