I write this soon after attending the Law School commencement exercises on Sunday, May 19, ending a string of 17 different graduation events in four days. It’s really not “work,” in the true sense of the term. I merely said a few words of welcome and then did a lot of observing.
This has got to be the most rewarding time during the year for a university provost. The graduates are beaming, their faces lighting up with the slightest reference to their accomplishments. The families who came to be with them on their special day are proud and loud. Many make a point of stopping and thanking faculty and staff for what they did for their loved one.
We too, as representatives of the university, try to communicate our awareness of how friends and family are key to the success of the graduates. It’s about as good as it gets, in terms of warm feelings on an academic campus.
There were several events that were for subsets of graduates, the ROTC commissioning ceremony, the LGBTQ Lavender ceremony, the Asian Heritage ceremony, the African-American Harambee ceremony, and the Latino Despedida ceremony. Each of these honored a set of graduates who shared a relatively rare trait among all seniors. That attribute was related to different challenges to their success during the four-year period. During the four years they found each other, sometimes through formal organizations that support the group, sometimes through informal, social ties.
It’s easy to think of the groups as split-offs, separatists, a source of divided loyalty, or a threat to commitment and allegiance to Georgetown. I found the opposite to be true.
I saw the same joy among friends, family, and graduates that I witnessed in the general commencements. There was whooping and hollering and laughing. There were stories making fun of the odd personality quirks of beloved buddies. It was love among folks who shared trials and tribulations and came out successes.
What surprised me was something else that became obvious – the group ceremony as a way to express and enlarge an attachment to Georgetown. In short, to the extent that those who seem “different” from the majority support one another and feel supported by the university, they can look back on their time here as enriching and rewarding. That camaraderie is part of their Georgetown memory and a source of allegiance to their alma mater.
At the full graduation, the ROTC cadets (now 2nd lieutenants) were dressed in uniform, not graduation robes; the LGBTQ, the Asian, the African-American, and the Latino affinity groups wore unique tassels or sashes designating their memberships or support. The groups thus integrated their identity into the graduation ceremonies, underscoring the shared success at the full graduation but also their affinity to constituent subgroups.
Minority groups (whether defined by intellectual interests, career goals, culture, race, ethnicity), because of their relatively small numbers, tend to spend more time interacting with majority students than vice versa. They field more questions about their motivations and world views. They also, however, profit from exchanging views within their own group and supporting each other in their shared experiences. These ceremonies I witnessed were celebrations of their effective navigation of Georgetown as a group and a culmination of bonding that enriches the whole university.
At Georgetown, we are preparing students to be effective leaders in a very diverse world. Those students in the minority within our diverse student body are key ingredients to our success at doing this. Supporting these ceremonies, on our part, is a fitting way to thank them.
Provost Groves,
Thank you so much for your support for these ceremonies throughout the course of this past year and for putting down on paper (or, rather, computer screen) some thoughts and memories from them.
I agree wholeheartedly with the comments above in terms of, as Kevin and Anthony expressed, the importance of continuing to support diversity groups and initiatives among the alumni community in order to uphold Georgetown’s commitment to ALL of its students as well as to facilitate mentorship programs for undergraduate students, thus improving their experiences and Georgetown’s ability to fully support students from a wide range of racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds, as well as those “in the minority” in regards to sexuality and disability.
In addition, as Shiva mentioned, I deeply appreciate your reflection that: “It’s easy to think of the groups as split-offs, separatists, a source of divided loyalty, or a threat to commitment and allegiance to Georgetown. I found the opposite to be true.” I also found these ceremonies to be profound expressions of unity and dedication, not only to the communities they celebrated but to Georgetown. I believe that part of loving a place like Georgetown is being committed to always asking difficult questions, and to maintaining high expectations not for what the university is, but for what it could be. Similarly, I see ethnic and cultural studies in this way; while in the past some have expressed concern that the availability of these academic pursuits would further divide Georgetown, they are crucial in combatting alienation and providing opportunities for not just tolerance, but understanding. To me, such initiatives represent the ideals of those who love Georgetown enough to expect greatness, to push for inclusion, support, and celebration of where we come from and where we are going.
Thank you again.
Peace,
Carly
Students, their families, and those of us from the faculty and staff lucky enough to attend these events really appreciate your being there as well, Provost Groves.
And your reflections in this post make a vital and positive contribution to what remains a complicated, often challenging conversation at Georgetown.
Georgetown’s future is necessarily implicated in America’s future and in the world’s, and we need to keep striving to be the better version of the institution we’ve always been, the one that can always better serve our quickly evolving populations of students, graduate and undergraduate, and in ways that respond directly to the many and increasing forms of diversity that those populations will bring with them to our campus.
Thank you again.
Thank you again, Provost Groves, for your support and institutionalizing the Asian Heritage Ceremony, Despedida, and Harambee. With your support, you guarantee that these traditions are sustainable for years to come and save future coordinators from the hassle of requesting funds from a wide variety of sources.
As Kevin said, life as a Hoya does not end after graduation. The creation of cultural affinity groups would serve to benefit both the alumni, current undergraduate students, and even the University. The alumni can reconnect with their alma mater. The current undergraduates can benefit from the support and networking from the alumni. The University can benefit from in multiple ways and increase the validity to its claim of “commitment to diversity.”
When I look at events geared towards bringing alumni back to campus, only a small handful of attendees are from these minority groups. Perhaps they do not feel like they connected to Georgetown as an undergraduate student. Perhaps they feel like they have no place coming back as an alumni. Regardless, creating affinity groups would allow for alumni to continue their ties with the University.
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Anthony T. Do
Georgetown University | School of Nursing and Health Studies ’15
Human Science/Premed
Thank you very much for this revealing analysis, and your commitment to fostering engagement with diversity on campus Provost Groves.
I would add that our goal as a Georgetown community– to foster community in diversity– should not be limited to the undergraduate level.
Mentioned in this post was the notion of an increasing sense of allegiance to the University: so why stop at graduation? These alumni certainly don’t stop living. They strive, grow, achieve, and indeed, put the world on fire. And yet they also yearn, yearn to reconnect with their alma matter. The University’s response to our alumni who organize and identify around established cultural/identity groups should reflect its drive to foster engagement with diversity at the undergraduate level. In other words, is it possible to to see more inclusivity and community in diversity in our alumni community? Can we create space for inclusivity of cultural affinity groups?
For instance, it’s an now an open secret that Georgetown’s relationship with its LGBTQ community has increased exponentially because of its support for the the work of the LGBTQ Center, and it’s dedicated staff that make it all happen. This community filled with alumni that had positive undergrad experiences will seek to give back to Georgetown in new ways unseen before.
And what about our relations with our Asian, Black and Latino alumni? The “opening the flood gates for an potentially infinite number of affinity groups” argument holds little water when you consider and place value on these very real, established and salient identity groups. These are pillars that tie the bonds between Georgetown’s minority and allied groups, which ultimately strengthens, not hurts, Georgetown and its mission of community in diversity. We should be better equipped to formalize such relations.
As a faculty member who cherishes personal contact with our students, I would have loved to have attended some of these special graduation ceremonies–alas, I didn’t know about them. I did attend Senior Convocation, College Tropaia, FLL Ceremony and Baccaleaurate Mass and received reminders/e-mails for them but don’t recall any announcements for those subset graduations that were mentioned in the Provost’s blog. Maybe for next year we can figure out a way to have those graduation events listed as well.
Astrid Weigert
Department of German
Thank you for your support and your presence at all of these special ceremonies. Mostly, it is wonderful to hear you articulate– with clarity and conviction– why these ceremonies are NOT splinter groups with “diabolical resistance,” but are in fact joyful, healthy, and positive extensions of our Hoya identities. That is not a sentiment I often hear from representatives of the “mainstream,” — so a special thank you.