As the first graduates to have their degrees conferred on Elliott Field, the Class of ’06 wanted to be remembered. “Oh-Six, Oh-Six, Oh-Six” they chanted in unison every chance they could find during the 115th Commencement ceremony on June 18.
Carnegie Corporation president Vartan Gregorian, ’58, PhD ’64, addressed graduates earning 3,101 advanced degrees on Saturday, June 17. The former president of the New York Public Library and Brown University encouraged graduates to be lifelong students and said, “We cannot retreat from the big issues of society and the world and our times into the pygmy world of private piety.”
Journalist Tom Brokaw, speaking at Sunday’s Commencement for 1,763 seniors, also spoke about today’s global challenges, noting that “a primary challenge of your time is to bank the fires of hostilities that are now burning out of control.”
While the Saturday proceedings were orderly, Sunday’s Wacky Walk lived up to its billing.
For defensive end Julian Jenkins and the other 14 graduating seniors on the football team, receiving their degrees on the field where they had put in so many grueling hours with pass-skeletons and up-downs was something of a homecoming. “You spend your whole life on the practice field,” the burly English major said, 11 hours before he boarded a plane for his first day of training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “And then they bring graduation to you.”
