And, yet, we are not cattle being called.  In his presentation at the
National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, David
McCullough stated that we have, as a society, lost too much of our
ceremonial practices.  He stated further that commencement ceremonies are
some of the last sacred rites that we can enjoy.  Regardless of one's
socio-economic background, one can adapt to doing what others do "when in
Rome" out of a sense of respect for the occasion and for others who are
there for the same joyous event.  Socio-economic status does not excuse
people from being polite.  To say otherwise is to say that people lacking
big purses of money are incapable and "less than" anyone who has been reared
in a middle or upper class environment.  Such implication simply holds no
truth.  Everyone is equal to the task of being quiet and serene in
commencement, in church, at funerals, in libraries, or just whenever someone
else is speaking.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with demanding a little
dignity on solemn occasions.

My parents were sitting in front of a group of people who kept yelling after
the same person throughout the duration of the ceremony, even many times
AFTER that person had crossed the stage.  That family, quite understandably,
was proud of their graduate.  But so were my parents, both from lower class
backgrounds.  They got to have the solemnity of the occasion bombarded every
couple of minutes by the shouts of the people behind them.  It doesn't
matter what sort of university this is.  It doesn't matter if people come
from places in hollars where the cattle call is a part of everyday life.
Most people are no longer raised in barns on the frontier and have the basic
ability to know there is a time and a place for everything.

Best to all,
Tyson.




-----Original Message-----
From: UTC Staff E-Mail List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Jennifer A Beech
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 10:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [UTCSTAFF] responsibility and "class"

Colleagues,
Having read Michel Holder's and others' descriptions of the "circus
atmostphere" and lack of "proper" decorum at recent UTC graduation
ceremonies, I'd like to offer another perspective: one related to social
class.

We teach at what John Alberti (College English 2001) calls one of those
"second-tier" or "working-class colleges--that represent the majority of
institutions of higher education." Put in a way more familiar, many (if not
the majority) of our students are first-generation college students. 

Their friends and family members who attend the graduation ceremony have not
been "schooled" in middle-class decorum the way "we" have--and we must
really be careful about setting ourselves up as sophisticated and mature and
pointing to these "others" as unsophisticated, immature, lacking in "style
and 'upbringing," etc. Drawing upon the theories of French sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu in her insightful article "Going Postal: Pedagogic Violence
and the Schooling of Emotion" (JAC 1990), Lynn Worsham urges us to
recognize, "The primary work of pedagogy is more fundamental than the
imposition of a dominant framework of meanings. Its primary work is to
organize an emotional world, to inculcate patterns of feeling that support
the legitimacy of dominant interests, patterns that are especially
appropriate to gender, race, and class locations." Worsham focuses on "the
dominant pedagogy of emotion for American middle-class socity", explaining
that it "historically has held emotion in a relation of opposition to
reason....This pedagogy mystifies emotion as a natural category and masks
its role in a system of power relation that associates emotion with the
irrational, the physical, the particular, the private, the femine, and
nonwhite other." And here I'd add also the "social class."

When middle-class--or to use Michel Holder's term--"sophisticated" people
attend graduation ceremonies, they have been schooled to suppress their
emotional responses or to display subdued emotional responses: the lone tear
shed quietly into a handkerchief.

In his book Distinctions: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Pierre
Bourdieu argues against the notion that some tastes are inherently
sophisticated; instead, tastes, decorum, "habitus," etc. are all bound up in
social relations of place and power. Loud displays of emotion, writes bell
hooks in Teaching to Transgress, are deemed by the white middle class as out
of place in the academy; hooks goes on to say that those from non-mainstream
backgrounds either learn to suppress their emotions in order to "pass" or
fit in or they are outcast, seen as others by the mainstream of the academy.


Now, don't get me wrong: I'm all for being able to hear each student's name
called as she received her degree. Yet, I would urge us to be careful about
casting "others" as lacking in style and upbringing. Simply because one's
style does not match up with our middle-class notions, that does not mean
someone lacks style or maturity. And, again, I'd refer us to Bourdieu's
notions of cultural and economic capital. Many working-class students come
to the university with some economic capital and certainly their families
sitting in the audience (who may be paper mill workers, chemical plant
workers, etc.) may have more economic capital than we underpaid professors.
Yet, what many of our students and their families may not have is the same
type of cultural capital that we expect. 

As I participated in the ceremony yesterday, I saw faces of exhuberant,
unrestrained joy and pride. We never know when this may be the first time
anyone in a particular family has EVER graduate, and those families may not
know if they'll ever see one of their own graduate again. Or, read another
way, when someone blows an air horn or jumps up and down as he crosses
stage, he may very well know that this isn't "proper" according to
"middle-class polite society" and that may be all the more the point: a
statement about making it in a system designed to let only a few "others"
pass through and a desire not to pass through quietly.
....just a few thoughts from the campus radical ;-)
--Jennifer Beech












-----Original Message-----
From: "Michel E. Holder" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] 
Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 11:29:36 -0400
Subject: [UTCSTAFF] responsibility

Good morning,

 

In the past several days, I have read most of the comments regarding the
"circus atmosphere" of UTC's graduation ceremony. I'd like to add my
thoughts to the discussion, since I have a relatively unique perspective. I
received my BSE at UTC in 1985 and my MSE in 1987, also at UTC. I attended
both graduation ceremonies which were held in the arena. As I recall, there
was very little, if any, boisterous and disruptive behavior on the part of
the students or their friends and relatives. Of course there were a few
shouts of joy, but nothing like what I've seen in the past few years. I
earned my doctorate at Vanderbilt where the ceremony was impressive and one
of my fondest memories. The ceremony was held in a gym with almost no
"decorations", and the speaker was the Dean of the Graduate School at
Vanderbilt.

 

Many people in our society seem to be incapable of accepting responsibility
for anything, and many others are allowing them to get away with it. Why
don't we ask the people that are truly responsible to accept the blame for
this disgraceful situation? Let's stop pointing our collective finger at the
venue or at the speaker or at the sparse decorations and place the
responsibility where it belongs; it belongs squarely on the shoulders of the
students and friends that are bringing disgrace to the proceedings. It is
their lack of sophistication and respect for others that is the key to this
problem and nothing else. People with style and "upbringing" could have a
graduation ceremony in a leaky barn and still conduct it in a respectful and
meaningful manner. 

 

I have one final thought. A graduation ceremony is very similar to a
wedding; both are very serious and solemn occasions while also being a time
for great joy and celebration. Mature, responsible adults know when it is
time to be solemn and when it is time to loudly rejoice; they also show
respect for the rights of all the other friends and parents who came to see
THEIR student graduate.



The problem is not with the arena or the speaker .. it is with the people
that are graduating and their friends ...that is the problem.



            Michel Holder



Dr. Michel Elizabeth Holder, P.E.

Asst. Prof. of Electrical Engineering

315-F EMCS

UT Chattanooga

Chattanooga, TN 37403

Ofc.   (423) 425-4358

FAX   (423) 425-5229




Jennifer Beech, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English and
Writing Center Director
Univ. of TN at Chattanooga
Phone:423-425-2153 or 423-425-1774
Fax: 423-425-2282