48 ForOregonState.org/Stater %' Nº Nº 19 ONE UNIVERSITY, MANY SPECIAL MOMENTS Graduates of OSU-Cascades follow the bagpipes in a ceremony in Bend, while across the Corvallis campus before and after the main Commencement ceremony, groups of graduates gather for special moments together. OSU Ecampus typically has brought together its graduates-to-be in the Valley Library Rotunda — or, more recently, at the MU — on Commencement morning. Some students are meeting their professors and seeing the campus in person for the first time. Outside one of these gatherings a few years ago, a young mother in cap and gown took photo after photo of the surroundings, including an old-style lamppost outside Kerr Hall, as her parents stood nearby, each holding one of her children. Asked what she was doing, the soon-to-be Ecampus grad said, “This is my university, and I’ve never seen it before!” — KEVIN MILLER, ’78 16 CUSTOM CAPS Commencement is perhaps the most traditional of univer- sity events, tying the experience of today’s graduates to those across the decades. Within the great event are myriad noteworthy OSU traditions. Once frowned upon, decorating graduation caps (which appears to have started in the 1990s) is now so common that the OSU Alumni Association has held cap decoration events, and a May piece in The New York Times Style Section featured companies making tidy profits creating trendsetting cap designs. Meanwhile, many graduates of OSU’s Civil and Construction Engineering program wear black hardhats instead. 18 REMOVING THE GOWN, TAKING THE OATH A particularly moving Commencement tradition happens when a senior military officer goes to the podium. Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) grads — 30 this past June — remove their cap and gown, stand in military headwear and uniform, and accept their commissions as officers. KARL MAASDAM HAND DIPLºMA IN Even as the number of graduates at the Corvallis ceremony has soared above 7,000, OSU has clung to the idea that grads should get their real diplomas at Commencement, rather than (as they’d get at most other large universities and many small ones) a note saying “Congrats, yours is in the mail.” This tricky business used to be accomplished by forcing students to march and sit in alphabetical order within their college groups, but now it’s based on a constantly self-correcting system involving cards that get handed in as graduates approach the podiums, and a small army of employees and volunteers who scramble to keep diplomas in the right order. Which of your favorite traditions did we miss? Write in and tell us about it at stater@osualum.com
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