Preserving the special gift of convocation

Fraser Forbes - 07 May 2018

Convocation is ultimately the most significant event in the life of any university. Convocation ceremonies celebrate years of hard work and remarkable accomplishments. Convocation is for graduating students, their families and friends, period. Yet, this year, sadly, the grand spirit of convocation is threatened at the University of Alberta.

A recent honorary degree decision by the University of Alberta - a decision that a great number of Albertans, and certainly our engineering community, received with hurt and insult - will cast a dark shadow over a day that should be, for the students graduating and their families, one of the most auspicious (and fun) days of their lives.

Convocation day is one where graduates, with parents, grandparents, other family and friends in tow, arrive on campus and walk to convocation, pause to take photos in front of the Jubilee Auditorium and excitedly recount their student days, fuelled by the giddiness of an incredible pride in what they have achieved. Think back to your own convocation!

It is the threat to that very special experience, that every graduating student has earned, to which I turn my focus in this week's letter. I do not believe it hyperbole to suggest that our university's intransigence on this issue - suggesting as it has that the issue is one, not of an affront to what our community values, but of institutional autonomy - will result in collateral damage: damage to our students, on what is very much meant to be their day!

This year, things are different. Graduating students and their families and friends face the very real possibility of running a gauntlet of angry protestors, along with tense security personnel and police trying to keep order. This is not hypothetical. Protests are planned, and the university's crisis planning team will most likely be activated in response. If protestors shouting at each other isn't enough to ruin the day, the inevitable crowds of onlookers, along with the news media, will be on hand to capture the sour mess of it all and share it online for the world to see.

I have no doubt the convocation ceremony and reception, itself, will be special and proceed like clockwork - our university's team in charge of the day's events does a great job - and will help to erase the negative mayhem of getting inside the building. But then it'll be time for families and their graduates to ignominiously run the gauntlet one more time as they exit the ceremonies.

The thought of it truly saddens me. I question how such a convocation experience can possibly resonate with our university's values? Is this what we aspire to as an institution? Is this the sort of send-off we want to give our graduating students on what will be, for most, their last day on the University of Alberta campus?

I fear the honorary degree decision will stand, regardless of the damage to our graduating students. So, I've been puzzling about what we each can do to ensure our students, and their families, have a happy and memorable convocation day. I simply ask:

  • That we all give our students a precious gift - the gift of a wonderful convocation experience. We can't control, of course, what the 'other side' plans to do. But, please save your protest for a public talk being planned or instead, consider writing a letter to the news media and to our university's leadership.
  • That our graduates, and their families, do attend this year's convocation. Trust that everyone will respect your convocation day. Celebrate your graduate and make great memories that will last a lifetime.

Until next week,

Fraser