Graduation 2026 (#1408)

Topics/tags: Grinnell, Rambly

Yesterday [1] was the graduation ceremony at Grinnell [2]. It’s the twenty-eighth graduation ceremony in my twenty-nine [3] years at Grinnell (we didn’t have one in 2020, for obvious reasons). I’ve made it to twenty-seven of them [4]. Of those twenty eight, only two have been indoors, last year’s and this year’s.

I’ve found that I prefer the indoor graduations, even though we don’t get the beauty of central campus and the views of the campus buildings. I suppose I also miss the squirrels and the turkey vultures; while I see neither at graduation, I feel their implied presence. An alum who was back for graduation told me they recall watching a caterpillar at their graduation.

But there are so many advantages to the indoor graduation. People don’t get sunburned. The temperature is more predictable (although warmer than I’d like). The event can be projected on large screens, so everyone can see. I think there’s more room for people to attend. People can eat inside or outside afterward. And if we settle on indoors graduations, FM and Conference Ops (or vice versa) won’t have to scramble to set up a second graduation location.

Of course, the graduation location is much less important than the graduates. As always, it was both happy and sad to see students graduate. I know that they are going on to great things (or, as our keynote speaker suggested, going off to the unknown, but that’s okay, too). But I’ll miss them. I’ll miss the ones I know very well, such as those who’ve taken classes from me, done research with me, or served as my class mentors/graders. Also my advisees (most of whom have done one or more of the preceding). But I will also miss the ones I know only casually, who I met at Shabbat Services, whose performances I watched, who chatted with me on some occasion. The latter group may even make me sadder; I have some confidence that the students who are close to me will reach out from time to time. The students I know casually? Perhaps I’ll see them at reunion. In the good old days, I would have been able to keep track of them on Plans. However, the current generation of students rarely uses Plans.

I’m glad that I got to present the Computer Science awards this year. We gave the Noyce Award to two students who made a big difference in the use of computing on campus. We gave the Walker award to two students who are heading off to graduate school. Both of the latter are looking at issues of CS education! As I said in the introduction to the awards, I’m confident that most of our students qualify in some way for each of the awards, whether it’s what they’ve done on campus or what we hope to see in the future.

I was also proud to see how many of our students took part in the Pledge of the Computing Professional. I’m glad to see our students committing to being ethical in their work. I even had one who missed the ceremony who found me after lunch and asked me to do a mini-ceremony for them.

What else? I met some parents. Some of the conversations were not what I expected. One set of parents, who are also alums, said something like Sam, you’re well known among the alumni community. Scary. Another pair said something like Our child came to Grinnell because of your ’blog. I said something like, Yes, they told me that my comments on open-source software were a big draw. They said, It’s more than that. When they were looking for alternatives to [SLAC], we did a web search and came upon your ’blog; that’s how they learned about Grinnell in the first place. Scary.

Hmmm … If my conversations with parents are scary, maybe I should avoid them.

It wouldn’t be a College event if your curmudgeonly muser didn’t find something to complain about. This year, it’s the use of additional materials on graduation gowns. Two or so years ago, the College told us that sashes and cords were no longer permitted [5]. Hence, I was surprised to see one group of students wearing sashes and another group wearing cords. I don’t really care either way, but I think policies should be applied uniformly. At this point, I think the only students wearing additional sashes should be those who wear sashes that represent their home countries.

Let’s return to positives. The speeches were great. And short! It was sad to know that one of our alumni speakers passed away between the time we invited them and graduation. Still, they were honored at graduation. As always, I loved seeing President Harris interact with the graduates as she handed them their diplomas. She was generous with hugs. She also seemed genuinely happy for each and every one of them. Dean Feingold did an amazing job reading all of the graduates’ names. Getting the pronunciation right is hard; I know that from my own experience reading names far too long ago.

And, as I’ve said before, our graduates are awesome. It was nice to see them together, to share in their and their families’ joy.

Good luck, graduates! Thank you for sharing yourselves, your ideas, and your talents in your time at Grinnell.

And you can go in whatever order you want, whether it’s first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or whatever. Don’t feel obligated to Go Forth Grinnellian [6].

[1] Why didn’t I muse yesterday? I was too worn out from graduation.

[2] Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to call it Commencement. I don’t care. It’s graduation.

[3] Since I started in August 1997, it’s really twenty-eight and three-quarters, more or less.

[4] I missed graduation during Michelle’s extended hospital stay in 2024.

[5] The reasons for discontinuing them are complicated. And there’s certainly a wide range of views on the matter.

[6] I considered making a programming-language joke instead. Don’t feel compelled to Go Forth Grinnellian. You can Go Java, Go Python, Go Scheme, or, if you’re really interested in employing a stack-oriented language, Go JavaScript. At least that joke doesn’t require that I play with spelling.

Version 1.0 of 2026-05-19.