'We Did It'

In two separate ceremonies, about 8,000 IU students were officially welcomed into the real world. It came with a one-year free membership in the Alumni Association. IU's 176th graduation commencement ceremony Saturday provided an opportunity for more than 30,000 family members and friends to demonstrate their love and support for graduates. Commencement was divided into two sessions depending on the graduate's particular school of study. About 7,700 soon-to-be IU graduates congregated in the stale air of the campus fieldhouse before the ceremony, to join the more than 466,000 IU graduates worldwide. A man stood on a table inside shouting into a megaphone to direct graduate foot traffic into their assigned majors -- education, social work, continuing studies and others. Tension permeated within the crowd, as graduates took pictures and talked into cell phones to further ease their rite-of-passage anxiety.

INTERNATIONAL ARMY OF IU GRADS Meanwhile, inside Assembly Hall, family and friends assembled into their seats to await the pomp and circumstance four years or so in the making. Cliff Flesher, the grandfather of graduate Bethany Flesher, said he has been an IU fan since he first watched basketball games on television when he was a kid. "In all, all three of my children and four of my granddaughters have attended IU. My wife and son-in-law graduated from IU," Cliff said. "We have never found anything we didn't like about IU or the campus." About a half hour before each session, the graduates walked down staircase after staircase to wind through the corridors of Assembly Hall toward the basketball floor. Each school's graduates followed their section's red banner with gold trim until the precession broke into two routes before filling rows of metal chairs atop rubber mats. Among the many filling an Assembly Hall seat one last time as undergraduates, COAS graduate Mike Kleinpeter said he was looking forward to a barbeque after the ceremony with about 60 family members and friends. Graduates decorated their black caps with random colored patterns, blue ribbons, red flowers, plastic shot glasses, buttons, initials, glitter, gold tinsel, and costume jewels. Some graduates also wrote a word or phrase to symbolize their feelings ("I'm Psyched"), their admiration for a particular person ("Hi Mom") or for a preferred way of life (a white peace symbol).

ON THE FLOOR OF ASSEMBLY HALL
IU President Adam Herbert provided the commencement address, which used some of the vocabulary of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt's 1918 commencement address. He emphasized a so-called international "ambition-gap, numbers gap, and education gap" as the result of American complacency in modern times. Herbert called on all graduates to use their knowledge as the new commodity in today's ever-changing marketplace so they may compete in the worldwide economy of a technology age after graduation. He called "hardwork" and "tenacity" familiar Hoosier values. "Commit to a process of lifelong learning … Standing still is losing ground," Herbert said. "Build meaning into your own life and develop you own measure of success -- not to be undervalued." Jennifer Chelf, a criminal justice and sociology graduate, said she enjoyed the ceremony but would have appreciated a better sound system "so everyone can hear the speakers." She recommended future graduates adorn "comfortable shoes" to the ceremony and "always make time for fun" while still on campus. "I could hear random cheering and I clapped along," Chelf said after sitting in the back left of the crowd. "It would have been more entertaining if we could hear what was said." Pres. Herbert also awarded former St. Petersburg Times editor Andrew Barnes an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree for his contributions to the journalism profession.

CAMPUS LIFE TO REAL WORLD
Herbert told the students to move their tassels to the left side of their cap to "show the world" they are graduates. Sporadic hat tossing and confetti shooting filled the air before Herbert led the graduates in a sing along of "Hail to Old IU." Audrey Whittaker, a general studies graduate, said she had fun at the ceremony despite the fact only Ph.D. candidate names were announced and only those students got to walk across the graduation stage. She said she attended IU's black student graduation, an event in which all student names were called out. "I appreciated everything about the ceremony, especially Pres. Herbert's speech -- to always be a perpetual learner, to have access to change the world," Whittaker said. Standing on a grass median in the Assembly Hall parking lot awaiting his visiting family, informatics graduate Rob Weis said his family was going to dinner to celebrate his academic rite-of-passage. He said he has secured a job in Indianapolis. "Keep your (grade point average) up. It's hard to get it back up when it tanks," Weis said. "College is more fun than real life -- everyone is your own age." Loose talk floating through the parking lot air involved restaurant directions, carpooling options and the "need to get a stiff drink." Nessara Sukpanich, a Ph.D. graduate in Economics from Thailand, said she loves IU because it has been "a wonderful place" with "helpful friends and faculty." "One day you will leave, so enjoy the time but be responsible," Sukpanich said. "Think of the good thing not only for yourself, but for other people. Work for the good."