DrTorch Wrote:

OptimisticOwl Wrote:I would just as soon have skipped every graduation I was in or any of my family or friends.

My undergrad insitition actually required attendance at graduation. Although I'm not quite sure what they could do to you if you skipped it.

It sucked.

At my PhD ceremony, they gave an honorary doctorate to Rose Mofford. Guess that put me in MY place, as it showed what my degree was worth.

AFAIK, my undergrad school had no requirements. The person who should have walked just before me wasn't there, and another guy actually wore just the arm of a gorilla suit. I went through it because (a) my family was there, and (b), I was afraid that at the last moment I would get a tap on the shoulder (I had grade and financial issues), so I thought I had better get hold of it ASAP.

My grad school offered me the choice, and for about $5 P&H I got the day off.

I atteded the grad ceremonies for both of my sons, and while I thought it was boring, I would have been very displeased and dismayed if a group of students and/or parents took it upon themselves to ruin it for the rest of us. Just common courtesy. Seems to be disappearing.

Great point by both of you. It is not about whether you agree or not. It is about common decency, which it seems a lot of Americans have lost.

T-Monay820 Wrote:This year we had a speaker (granted, it wasn't a graduation ceremony) by the name of George Stephanopoulos. His advertising flyer they put up around campus said one thing, but his speech said something else that night. And his speech was basically a campaign stump for Hillary. Yet all 800 member of the Corps of Cadets sat through the speech (about 90% of which we disagreed on, mostly his points on the military) and applauded him at the end. Then we went back to the dorms and griped to one another about his blatant ignorance of the military. Yeah, it was our right to turn our backs and boo him, but we didn't. The point is, that we honored the fact that he had been invited as a guest of the University and that he deserved our respect as a visitor to our campus and that we would hear him out.

IMO, that was the appropriate way to approach it. I've listened to planty of speakers I didn't agree with and never once did I think it was appropriate to make an ass of myself and ruin the moment or event for everyone else.