How not to epic
When the wrong moment goes viral.
There is very little I enjoy thinking about more than experiences. It will become painfully clear to you, if it is not already, that I am a fan of Chip Heath and Dan Heath, in particular of The Power of Moments. While I will [and do] take any opportunity to quote this book, this week I have an especially good reason.
As the science of TPOM [trying for the Taylor Swift effect - did it work?] shows, we as humans tend to remember the best or worst point and the end point of any given experience. This works to your benefit as an experience planner if you are conscious and conscientious, making sure that a final moment is a glorious one. A not atypical Michelin restaurant experience is to leave with a gift of pastries or small dessert bites. If you’re a singer, save a crowd favorite for the encore and they leave happy. [s/o to opera trained folksinger Susan Werner, who has been known to close with La Vie en Rose]
This week in education, however, we have seen what happens when the last memory is also the worst memory - and things go wrong enough to make national news, over and over again. Finishing college is a major achievement and it merits celebration on a massive scale. In fact, my planned post for today was about achieving a thoughtful, epic graduation, but I’ve delayed that. This week Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia made news for all the wrong reasons. Somehow the speaker at graduation who was reading the names garbled them to the point where it sounded like aliens were trying to learn English by reading subtitles. Names like Nicole and Jessica and…. Thomas. At Thomas Jefferson.
Certainly part of why this is making news is that these are “typical” names in America and people expect other names to be garbled. My own is actually garbled almost all the time, and it drives me fairly crazy. There is no clearer way to “tell me you don’t care about your students without telling me you don’t care about your students,” as the kids would say. I have been thinking for a few years that that we could do graduation better, and now I’m sure that we can’t do it worse.
Thomas Jefferson has already apologized and said that the speaker was reading the phonetic pronunciation given on student cards, thought some cards posted on social media seem to indicate they also cannot spell phonetically. Regardless, they have taken the final moment, the crowning achievement of these students’ years of study, and made it a mockery in national news and the final moment for these students and families for life. I am very glad not be to be in alumni affairs or development there - I suspect this memory will not fade.
One of my absolute favorite career tasks I ever had was reading the names at graduation at MBA@UNC. We held an in person graduation for online students [this has since merged] only and celebrated this remarkable accomplishment - completing a rigorous synchronous online MBA program, with students Zooming in from all over the world for class. Graduation was on campus, for many it was the first time they had ever seen the campus of their alma mater. They brought spouses and kids and parents and loved ones. Pretty big deal.
Many schools have their students names on cards that are handed to the person reading names - that is the easiest way to stay on course, even if someone doesn’t show, or the order is rearranged, etc. We were the same. My preparation was clearly different, however. As the students lined up outside before the processional, I went to each student individually and read their names to make sure I wouldn’t make a mistake onstage. I also took that time to claim [completely falsely, and they were in on the jokes] that it wasn’t over until I said their names onstage, so they still had time to mess up at the end. I was very fortunate at UNC, there are many schools where someone more “important” - higher up the food and title chain - reads names, and this often leads to another point of disconnect. I was someone students knew, working with them all the time, so often I already knew their names.
I don’t, however, only blame the person reading the names at TJU. I don’t know who she was, in terms of title/role at the school, and i’m actually glad that her name hasn’t gone viral for this. The thing is, there are a LOT of people involved in graduation, and many things had to go wrong to get to this particular nightmare. I suspect there was no run of show, which is a basic in event planning. Someone had these cards made up - did no one actually read them to see if they made any sense? Was there not a backup list of names on the podium, like I had? One of my odd skills, which has led to my CUCO status, is being able to see quickly where things can and will go wrong. TJU, call me for next year and let’s give students the memory they deserve.
At the end of dinner at Noma, we got a tour of the restaurant and this takeaway gift, and they they walked us to our taxi to said goodnight. That’s how you end epic.