Slivers of History

University commencement, which means we all don our academic regalia and pretend we are wizards. It’s kind of awesome.

The west side of Sandord Stadium, where we enter, will be torn apart in the coming weeks so they’ve gone ahead and started removing some things, like the 1996 Olympic Torch that was enshrined here.

Farewells

Two colleagues are leaving us, heading off into well-earned retirements. Professor Patricia Thomas and I started the same year. We’ve partnered on many projects, shared many tales of woe over students and I will truly miss her around the building.

Professor Lee Becker is also heading out. As director of the Cox Center for International Journalism, he asked me to talk with visiting journalists from countries around the world. Even asked me to teach in Kazakstan, which I really wanted to do but just couldn’t make work.

Ready, Just In Case

We’re a few days away from the university’s commencement ceremony where many of us will don rented academic regalia and march around, looking like medieval wizards. It’s kind of awesome.

The company the university uses to rentals has, three out of the last four years, gotten my hood colors wrong so I just went ahead and ordered my own from Syracuse University.