Dean Bowen's graduation announcement

April 17, 2007

Dear Graduates,

Thanks to everyone who attended last night’s meeting. I am very glad to have such passionate, talented, creative and smart students in the Meadows School of the Arts. Your argument regarding the timing of the decision to move the ceremony was quite persuasive. I have also heard your concern for the special quality of the location for the Meadows ceremony. This morning I got the revised RSVPs and met with some student representatives.

I have agreed to move the timing and location back to the original location in front of the Owen art Center.

So original invitations will now be correct:
Reception 4-5:30pm outside the Greer Garson
Ceremony: 6:30pm front steps of the Owen Arts Center

This is your day, and I want to honor you. I also want to make plans that are inclusive of our entire community. There are students on both sides of this issue as well as concerned faculty, staff and parents. Last night, you pledged to work with me to solve these issues, and I will now ask that you follow through on this commitment. This needs to be a victory for the entire community. I do not want to be divided going into graduation.

Here are some of the issues we face: we have enough chairs to duplicate last year’s set-up, but we have more guests. Further, there is no possibility of doing a video feed from outdoors—we can broadcast from or to McFarlin and from or to Hughes-Trigg, because that is where the cables are. We have investigated other cooling fans, but the bigger issue is the rain plan. Students in attendance last night were willing to risk the outside ceremony and pray for no rain. If it rains, we will need to divide into smaller ceremonies. We can take some people into McFarlin, but we will need to hold other simultaneous ceremonies or come up with a new and better plan. As I look out the window, I think we need to be prepared with a reasonable and meaningful backup plan. I will need your help in planning this. (I get the message that a remote location doesn’t help if we are indoors, so better ideas are encouraged.) The Bookstore is holding all invitation and insert orders.

It is my hope that you will embrace this opportunity for leadership and accept this as a mandate to be full participants in the creation of an even stronger community within Meadows that considers and protects all of its members. I invite all graduating students to participate in creating a meaningful diploma ceremony.

I ask that you join me tomorrow, Wednesday at 11:30am in Greer Garson Room 3527 (upstairs in the Dean’s suite) to make further plans.

Dean Hofeditz will be in charge of organizing and answering questions about graduation. I will be away from the campus until Monday night, so please direct questions to him.

Thank you again to everyone who attended last night’s meeting or has participated in this process.

José Bowen