Amid a sea of camera flashes, decorated mortarboards and soon-to-be alumni doing "the wave," Ohio University's seniors officially became part of the real world.
OU commencement ceremonies took place June 14 at The Convo and were divided into two separate ceremonies for the 3,000 graduating students, said Andrew Holzaepfel, OU assistant director of public occasions.
Upon hearing their names called in the traditional graduation processional, some seniors cried and hugged friends and family. But most smiled and posed for pictures.
"It's very enlightening and exciting," said Courtney Cable, OU graduate from the College of Communications. "I'm anticipating the journeys ahead."
But not all people share her outlook on graduating. For OU President Robert Glidden, the reaction to commencement is a little bit different.
"For me there is a bittersweet quality to commencement time because although it's a triumphal day for the graduates and their parents, it's a time when we say goodbye, at least temporarily, to thousands of students who have made the university what it is for the past three or four, or five or six, years," Glidden wrote in an e-mail.
The ceremonies began at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Students from the Colleges of Business, Communication, Fine Arts and Health and Human Services graduated in the morning. The Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Russ College of Engineering and Technology, Honors Tutorial College and University College students took part in the afternoon exercises.
Each ceremony followed the same program, and total attendance for the day was estimated at 25,000, Holzaepfel said.
Students listened to remarks given by OU President Robert Glidden, as well as Senior Class Vice President Stephen Matsko.
"I am confident we will never again have to walk the 110 steps of Jeff Hill, become as proficient at parking as we are, or hear the words "I'm sorry, but the class you have requested is full," Matsko said.
Matsko spoke on behalf of Senior Class President Amanda Cunningham, who died earlier this year in a car accident.
The featured graduation speaker was OU alumnus and CNN news anchor and foreign correspondent Martin Savidge. His speech touched on his experiences as an embedded journalist in Iraq, but mainly encouraged students to be compassionate.
"Rely on your training, trust in those who have experience, and above all, never forget that you are a human being," Savidge said.
Cunningham, Terris Ross and Morgan Dixon, OU seniors who died earlier this year, were awarded their degrees posthumously in separate, family-only ceremonies. In addition, their names were called during the time in the ceremony that they would have graduated.
Cable said she liked the ceremony even though it was nearly three hours long. But three hours is short in comparison to the length of time it took to plan graduation.
"Graduation is always the biggest event we do here at OU," Holzaepfel said. The ceremony is scheduled according to the school calendar a year in advance, and officials begin working on it in December. The whole event costs roughly $130,000 and about 150 students are needed to work the ceremonies.
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Ohio University graduating senior Ashley Hill talks with friends as students line up to go into the ceremony the morning of Saturday, June 14. Hill was one of the approximately 3,000 undergraduate students to walk in 2003.
