More than 6,200 degree candidates, weather that couldn't be better and a record crowd of family, friends and faculty well-wishers made Cornell's 130th Commencement a festive occasion May 24 at Schoellkopf Field.
As the Commencement procession from the Arts Quad reached the stadium gates, it was clear these graduates were ready to celebrate their successful years at Cornell. Blowing bubbles or unleashing balloons, some were bedecked in floral leis and leafy laurels, others by stuffed animals and inflatable creatures of all kinds. The veterinary doctors brought their usual assortment of live canines -- all well-behaved, of course -- and so did grads of other schools. Some carried flags of their home countries. Others bore paraphernalia of special significance. A bright yellow basketball, for instance, or an academic cap decorated with a tiny plastic horse that grazed in artificial turf.
The marching graduates scanned the stands of the crescent -- "Donald, stand up! Where are you?" -- and searched for familiar faces. One waved while calling on a two-way radio, trying to connect with a camera-bearing family member. Graduates with their own cameras took pictures of people photographing them.
In the crowd were members of the Gellert family, who came to Commencement decked out in red tie-dyed T-shirts. Emblazoned on the front were the words "Gellerts Climb High." On the back were the names of Gellert family members who had graduated from Cornell in the past -- 12 names in all, with a 13th to be added that day.
"We're here to watch Rebecca Gellert get her degree," said cousin Steve Gellert, who plans on attending Cornell in 1999. The Gellerts' Cornell connection began in 1927, when Imre Gellert earned his degree, family members said. And Cornell junior Dan Gellert is expected to graduate in 2000, so that will mean a return trip to campus.
Once the procession of faculty members and university officials was in place in their seats on the field, the national anthem was played. The Big Red faithful sang of "the rocket's red glare," with shouted emphasis on the "red," and then quieted to hear from the traditional speaker at Cornell commencements, the president of the university.
President Hunter Rawlings' address was a memory-probing, who's who of the "great minds and great talents," both visiting and homegrown, who "expanded horizons and enlivened spirits" of graduating students during their four years at Cornell.
"Universities are communities of inquiry," Rawlings said, "where faculty and students alike learn to discover things for themselves, not merely to study the achievements of others, and to extend them to the wider world."
He asked students to recall visits by Jane Goodall, the primatologist who is a Cornell A.D. White Professor-at-Large, and Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Heath; prize winners Susan Faludi and Richard Smallwood, with a Pulitzer and a Grammy, respectively; Haris Silajdzic, co-prime minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina; as well as novelist Don DeLillo and corporate leaders Raymond Gilmartin and Dennis Dammerman.
The president reminded students that former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who guided the recent negotiations in Ireland, talked of peace in that country a year ago during his Statler Auditorium lecture as the university's Bartels World Affairs Fellow. "Today we can see the results of Friday's vote in Ireland: An overwhelming vote for peace," Rawlings said.
He reminded the crowd of "Prairie Home Companion" host Garrison Keillor's radio broadcast last June from Bailey Hall, and that Keillor had described Ithaca both as the nation's most enlightened city and "a place where you could live all your life and never run out of choices in granola."
And, of course, the president recalled the mysterious McGraw Tower pumpkin, which gained national attention, and he cited the winners of the undergraduate competition to determine its makeup.
Certain faculty names were not so well known to students when they first arrived at campus, Rawlings observed, but that changed. David Lee and Robert Richardson won the 1996 Nobel Prize in physics -- and, Rawlings said, undergraduates in his class on the morning of the announcement didn't mind "when Professor Lee diverged slightly from the syllabus that day to talk about the work that led to the prize."
And another Nobelist, Professor Roald Hoffmann, could frequently be encountered in the Temple of Zeus, Rawlings said, "discussing poetry with Professor Archie Ammons and other faculty members, students and local writers over morning coffee." Hoffmann has taught his introductory chemistry class every year since 1965, the president said.
The president also cited structural engineer Mary Sansalone, a winner of the U.S. Professor of the Year Award, and historian and professor Walter LaFeber, recipient of the 1998 Bancroft Prize, before returning to the words of A.R. Ammons for a poetic quotation and an inspirational send-off: "May happiness pursue you, catch you often ..."
The deans of each school and college then presented their candidates (Johnson Graduate School of Management Dean Robert J. Swieringa proclaimed his M.B.A. recipients "are about to be extremely well paid and successful!"), and the president conferred degrees "with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities." The Glee Club and Chorus performed "Evening Song" and led the crowd in singing the alma mater. Then the recessional parade began.
The assemblage, officially estimated at 41,000 -- an apparent record for Cornell commencements -- took longer than usual to leave Schoellkopf Field. Some in the crowd lingered for photo opportunities with the new grads. Others just sat in the stands, seemingly reflecting on the morning's event and all that had preceded it.
Eventually the crowd found its way to reception tents set up on the lawns of each college. And then they were off to the world beyond Ithaca, where, if Archie Ammons' benediction comes true, happiness will "be waiting ahead, making a clearing for you."
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