Pomp and Circumstance

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As you're reading this, I'm in Northampton, Mass., waiting to see if the traditional Smith Ivy Day procession is going to take place in the Quadrangle, or in the Athletic Center (we're expecting heavy rain.) Tomorrow, Commencement Day, the sun is expected to shine, and we'll get to watch our daughter, along with 672 other young women - and a few men(1) - complete her four year journey. I think I'm getting weepy already. It seems like just yesterday she was graduating from her Catholic high school - unfortunately, she can't just recycle the white dress and robe from 2010 (above.)

Of course, we're not the only ones waiting to hear Elgar start playing. All over America, the Class of 2014 will be marching into high school auditoriums and civic centers and Alumni Halls and stadia. Parents will sniffle, the class clown will stand up and bow, mortar boards will be tossed in the air, and the young people will be ushered out of one stage of life and into another.

I have graduated three times and I don't remember very much about any of the commencements. I recall it was beastly hot at the Syracuse Civic Center when Liverpool High's Class of '79 passed through. Our salutatorian quoted the Grateful Dead. The commencement speaker for Ithaca College's Class of '83 was Isaac Asimov, and despite the fact I love his writing, I don't remember a single word he said. My parents were stuck way up in the back of the gym, as Athletic Centers were known in the early 80s. My mom told me it smelled faintly of urine and old socks, something I'm sure is not so in Athletic Centers. When I graduated from the University of Maine School of Law in 1990, we sat in the lovely and historic First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, founded in 1675. Who spoke? Not a clue. (Maybe Brenda Buchanan can fill us in in the back blog.) Graduating from law school doesn't feel like as much of a rite of passage, since you're going to see all your classmates next week in bar review class.

How about you, Reds? Any memorable graduations? Your own or others?RHYS BOWEN: I remember my own graduation from London University very well, because there was a lot of pomp and circumstance. The queen mother was our chancellor and each of us was presented to her as we received our diploma. My parents, were in the congregation but near the center aisle. As the queen mum came down the aisle, graciously nodding to left and right, she recognized my father (who had shown her around the British industries fair several times) and gave him a big smile. My dad never forgot that moment.

My son's graduation from UC San Diego was also memorable because President Clinton spoke, so the security was horrendous. We had to be in our seats about 3 hours before he arrived. And he was late. Dominic was due to sing a solo with the gospel choir but they had to cut their performance to one group number. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: The QUEEN? The PRESIDENT? Huh. I got nuthin. Except I got sent home from my high school graduation because my white lace mini-skirt was too short. (It was, looking back on it.) It was gonna be under a robe, what was the big difference? I remember thinking--I'm not going back. I thought: What are they going to do, expel me? I did go back, because my parents cared, and I don't remember one BIT of it except for being thrilled that stupid horrible high school was over.

In college, we were protesting Kent State. Nobody went.

Julia, congratulations! Hurray! (Pomp! Circumstance! And didn't Smith cancel the speaker?)



JULIA: They didn't cancel - after the student body protested against the selection of Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Money Fund, she withdrew. (They objected to the IMF, not to Mme Lagarde.) Instead, we're going to hear former Smith College President Ruth J. Simmons deliver the address tomorrow. She's also the former president of Brown - the first African-American woman to head an Ivy League school. I'm looking forward to her speech!



SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Julia, congratulations to Smithie! All I remember of my high school graduation is wearing a white dress (it was an all girls Catholic school) and then for college our speaker was Madeleine L'Engle, who I thought was fabulous. And it was an outdoor ceremony on a day that was ridiculously hot.

Before I became a parent, I wouldn't have understood — but the kiddo's preschool graduation was incredibly moving. He'd spent three years in the school and we all just loved the other kids and the teachers. 


But onward and upward! Now sometimes we run into some of the kiddo's former teachers in the neighborhood and he doesn't even remember them — but I do.


 




HALLIE EPHRON: We wore white dresses to high school graduation, too, and it wasn't a Catholic school. Madeleine L'Engle -- WOWEE! I'd have been over the moon.

I skipped my own college graduation -- political ferment of the 60s, we were protesting. At my daughter's graduation from Columbia, security was brutal (it was not long after 9/11) and it was teeming rain, so all we could see were umbrella undersides and we couldn't leave until it was over. The queen mum did not attend.

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  I didn't graduate from high school, having dropped out the beginning of my junior year. I did graduate from college, however, with a BA in Biology from Austin College in Sherman, Texas. (Yay, Roos!) My strongest memory is that it was hot (surprise!), the ceremony was outside, and I was smothering in my cap and gown. My  hair was very short, and I had on big chunky-heeled shoes underneath my robe. My parents were deliriously proud. I have no idea who spoke, but wish it had been Madeleine L'Engle! That, I would have remembered!
My daughter's high school graduation was so huge (held in the "sanctuary" of a mega-church) that we could barely see her on the stage. When she graduated from college, I was out of town, on book tour. Sigh.

Julia, huge congrats to the Smithie! And what's next for her?

JULIA: She's home for the summer (and beating the bushes for a job, so if anyone in Southern Maine knows of one...) and then it's off to Boston in the fall, where she'll be pursuing her MLIS at Simmons College. I'm very proud of her. Keep an eye on my Twitter feed Sunday - I'll be posting pictures!



(1) There are trans* students at Smith who identify as young men.

On college admissions madness.

JAN: Please welcome Jennifer Delahunty to Jungle Red today. She is the dean of admissions at the prestigious Kenyon College in Ohio, and the author of a new collection of essays about the college admissions process.

Jennifer, a mother of two girls, has seen the madness from both sides of the application. Her essay for The New York Times about the torture of undergoing this process with her daughter. Entitled, "To All the Girls I rejected," was the most emailed article for weeks after publication and syndicated in major papers across the country.

Booklist has given the book rave reviews and says the essays, with include authors like Anna Quindlen, Jane Hamilton, Neil Pollack, the Neurotic Parent Blogger, and myself, range "from hilarious to painful," and are often revealing about what Jennifer calls, "The last dance of parenting."

There's also the "inside" perspective not just from Jennifer, but also from admissions director from Smith and Colby Colleges.

JAN: Why has college admissions become so stressful for parents?

JENNIFER: To parents, the college bumper sticker has almost become the report card on the first 18 years of parenting. When parents call me and ask why their son or daughter didn't get into Kenyon, I'm so struck by the fact that they want to blame themselves.

All of us, parents of this generation, have done too much for our kids and then we whack them over the head with the college search assignment and they have no idea what to do -- and thus the parents step in, once again, to rescue them..

JAN: I know from my own experience that my kids were made crazy by the process. Even before parents got involved. Why is that?

JENNIFER: It's ridiculous! Thirty-five years ago, students applied to three colleges, got into two and chose one. It seemed very manageable. But that's not how it goes today -- we've had students apply to Kenyon and 19 other colleges. Do you know how difficult it is to keep track of 19 different applications -- and to what end?

JAN: But because the process has become so selective?

JENNIFER: What percentage of students do you think get into their first choice college? 75%! You wouldn't think that by reading the mainstream press, which is all amped up over selectivity. The problem is that colleges and the press are both guilty of feeding the frenzy -- the press says "it's so hard to get in" and then the colleges get more applications and guess what? It IS harder to receive a fat envelope.

JAN: How you got the idea for the book?

JENNIFER: I read an essay by Gail Hudson (included in the book) which was in a collection of essays about raising teenagers. It made me laugh so hard -- and this was at the point when my own kids were going through the process. I thought, "I would read an entire collection of such essays."

JAN: Were there any particular anecdotes of crazy parenting that you saw as dean of admissions that inspired the book or that you'd like to share?

JENNIFER: There are too many! The mother who falsified her son's transcript, the mother who forged a threatening letter from Kenyon to her admitted son so that he would button up his work habits and not lose his offer of admission, the parents who write the essays, the parents who say, "We are English majors." You get the picture! This is not about the parent -- it has to be about the child.

JAN: How would you describe this collection?

JENNIFER: The essays are from parents and for parents of college-going students. It's not a "how to" book, but rather, a "how I survived" collection of essays. Parenting a kid through the college search process is confusing, exhausting, frustrating and hopefully, exhilarating. But the ride is a wild one! Each essay illustrates a particular journey of parent and child -- and each one is a unique experience.

JAN: I connected with Jennifer in a global sort of way. I was at a dinner party in Aix-en-Provence, France, where we were trading war stories about our own experiences with our kids. And one of the friends I made there, Cathleen Keenan Church, retold my story to her friend Jennifer, in Ohio. But how did you reach so many high profile authors in gathering these essays?

JENNIFER: Some of the high-profile essays were borne of friendship (Anna, Jane) and some through accident (Neil Pollack, Joe Queenan). Two of the essays I had read before in one form or another. It was very organic, how the essays found their way to me.

JAN: Were there any big surprises?

JENNIFER: I wrote an essay about my daughter's college search and when she read it, she said very politely, "Mom, the writing is good and your concluding point is perfect, but I sound like an idiot." "What's our solution?" I asked, using my best counseling tone. "Let me write what I was really thinking." And she did! And she was hilarious and profound. I was so glad to have her perspective in the book. She translates what many students think for the parents.

JAN: Any last advice for parents or students?

JENNIFER: My basic approach has been to tell everyone to take a deep breath and repeat after me: "It will all be fine in the end." And it will be!

I'm Going To College Not You, will hit the book shelves September first and is available now to preorder at Amazon.com and the on-line independent bookstore, Powells.com

There will be readings across the country: September 4, in Gambier Ohio (home of Kenyon College) October 2nd in Los Angeles and October 12 in New York City. For times and venues contact: ImGoingToCollegeNotYou@Gmail.com or visit "I'm Going To College Not You" on Facebook.

And please come back to Jungle Red Writers tomorrow, when I'll be talking to a Yoga experts about what postures are the best to unlock your creativity. That's right. Pretty soon you'll be on all fours unleashing your blocked energies before you sit down to write.