<p>I posted a few cell phone images of the campus and events on Twitter. Search on Swarthmore. It was a wonderful weekend. Glorious weather. Wonderful ceremonies. I'm usually not impressed by honorary degrees but I truly found the recipients to be worthy of the honor. Swarthmore does no small or gratuitous thing.</p>
<p>Best wishes to all now on and who will be on this forum. May Swarthmore play as significant a role in your family as it has in ours. </p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Bill</p>
<p>Bill,
Congratulations to your Swattie grad and to your entire family! Glad you had glorious weather. (We had to pull out our umbrellas 2 years ago.) I recall thinking the same thing two years ago about the honorary degree recipients. Phenomenal folks. Without giving away any private information, can you share what your graduate will be up to next?</p>
<p>She’ll start work on her PhD in Linguistics at UMass Amherst next fall. Thanks for asking.</p>
<p>Fantastic! Best of luck to her. She has certainly been well-prepared to start a Ph.D. program. My '07 Swattie is just finishing up his second year in a Ph.D. program.</p>
<p>Congrats KYDad. I was just saying at dinner that it was 52 weeks ago today that we were at S1’s Swat graduation. Best of luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>Thanks for thegood wishes. I’m posting from an iPhone so responses are a bit brief. </p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Bill</p>
<p>Congrats, KYDad. Best of luck to your daughter. Like Shellfell, it has been 52 weeks since my son graduated. He attended the celebrations yesterday.</p>
<p>It was really a wonderful weekend, all around. The weather could not have been better, most of the speakers were pretty good, and the engineering prank actually worked! This is a difficult year on the commencement speech circuit, and I was happy not to hear some of the things that have been reported from other schools (either on the trivial side or the opposite doom-and-gloom side) but rather an affirmation of what makes a Swarthmore education special (and aknowledgement of what makes it painful!).
Al Bloom’s new portrait in Parrish was pretty cool, too.
I can’t believe that it’s over–best of luck to all the graduates!</p>
<p>siusplau, congratulations to your graduate and your entire family, too! What did the engineers pull off this year?</p>
<p>Well–it was a multi-parter. The first part was when the platform that the boxes of diplomas were stacked on slid out towards the podium in a contraption that looked and sounded like a pallet-loader, complete with beeping and flashing yellow light! Not certain that this was the work of the engineers, but daughter said it wasn’t included last year.</p>
<p>Then, right as Pres. Bloom announced that the engineers were next, a “cannon” shot confetti over the graduates, a trumpet duo began the theme from 2001:A Space Odyssey as a “pirate” banner unfurled over the Class of 2009 banner, and a clear plastic bunny-type creature inflated near one side of the stage (I’m told this is another 2001 reference, but I don’t know it!). Anyway–it was pretty elaborate and fun!</p>
<p>There’s video of the engineering prank as well as the speeches at the Commencement website:</p>
<p>[Swarthmore</a> College :: Commencement 2009 :: Commencement 2009](<a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/x21523.xml]Swarthmore”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/x21523.xml)</p>
<p>So far, I’ve found Mary Schmidt Campbell’s graduation speech and Maurice Eldridge’s Baccaulareate speeches very moving. I suspect the students did, too.</p>
<p>interesteddad, I didn’t see the link to the engineering prank…can you help me? Thanks!</p>
<p>siusplau, I have this vague recollection of that “pallet loader” from graduation '07! Hadn’t thought of it since then until you mentioned it.</p>
<p>It makes sense that the pallet loader was used before–it was pretty slick! For the link, go to Swarthmore’s main page, and in the photo caption, the words “customary prank” are highlighted–that’s the link.</p>