Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 11, 1993 TAG: 9305110062
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Madelyn Rosenberg
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And it's almost as doubtful that they'd remember who it was who told the jokes in the first place.
A number of graduation speakers have confessed this history of failure to make an impression before they struggle to give students something they will remember.
But perhaps no one has succeeded as well as Ann Kilkelly.
Kilkelly, head of women's studies at Virginia Tech and a professor in theater, spoke at the departmental graduation for sociology on Saturday.
She made her entrance down a spiral staircase carrying an over-sized briefcase, papers falling over the audience in her best impression of an absent-minded professor.
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at Graduation," Kilkelly said. "That was one."
Kilkelly said she developed the performance because she wanted students to remember this important time in their lives.
She talked about her own graduation in 1968 (donning a headband and lovebeads - you get the picture) where hundreds of students were buck naked under their gowns.
And she asked them to mark the moment of this graduation, to remember the morning.
"We felt pride, swallowed tears . . . felt incredibly old, felt incredibly young."
She had the audience sing the first two lines of "Bye Bye Blackbird" (substituting "Blacksburg," at the end).
And she did a tap dance, her feet stamping out the beat.
Of the first year. Of spring break. Of the future.
Ra-ta-tap.
Tap.
Tap.
\ The English department tried a different kind of Pomp and Circumstance by doing away with a graduation speaker altogether. Instead, they had listened to two bagpipers, two drummers and readings by students and faculty in the department.
Some other graduation trivia.
Number of times someone used the Tech's Latin motto "Ut Prosim" (That I may serve): Three.
Number of times another Latin phrase was used: Once. (Speaker John Ashworth used his own school motto, translated as "To know the causes of things." That Latin, I forget.)
Longest title for a dissertation goes to Edward Earl Custer Jr., an animal science major, who wrote: "Differential Effect of Melengestrol Acetate or Progesterone-Releasing Intravaginal Devices on Follicular Development, Progesterone and Estradiol-17B Concentrations and Patterns of Luteinizing Hormone Release During Bovine Estrous."
Most accessible dissertation topic goes to Harriet Hindinger Duncan, who wrote a quantitative analysis of "Meanings and Motivations Among Older Adult Mall Walkers."
Most honest saying written on a mortarboard: "Hire me."
\ AUTHOR Madelyn Rosenberg covers higher education for the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River Valley bureau.
by CNB