I had the pleasure of attending the graduate commencement late Thursday afternoon. Keith Ratner and I marched with other faculty in our robes. It was a fairly large graduation - several hundred graduates. We had a particularly large cohort of graduates this year from the M.S. Geo-Information Science program - 8 in all (though the program listed one other who was not quite done yet). The highlight of this year's ceremony was clearly the commencement speech by Jonathan Kozol, one of the two recipients of honorary degrees in humane letters. Mr. Kozol is a longtime educator and children's advocate who has written numerous award-winning books on the plight of underprivileged children in particular. Though I think most of us were more impressed by the fact that he was a close friend of the late and beloved Mr. Rogers. Mr. Kozol was funny and moving, and surprisingly, fiery in his critique of the narrowing and regimentation of education that is happening in response to standardized testing (i.e. MCAS in Massachusetts). He implored the graduates - and the rest of us - to not let go of the spontanaity and creativity and humanness that makes good and worhwhile education.
After the ceremony we met with our graduates in a reception - very happy (and relieved) individuals.
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