Daily Bruin File Photo Graduating students often attend
commencement ceremonies where they listen to speakers they had no
part in selecting.
By Roopa Raman
Daily Bruin Contributor
Graduation has always served as a final gesture to students for
accomplishments they have made throughout their education.
But at the UCLA School of Law, School of Public Policy and
Social Welfare and the Graduate School of Education and Information
Studies, student input in the selection of a ceremony speaker is
capped ““ or excluded altogether for the sake of
“efficiency.”
In all these cases, the student body hears about a speaker after
the selection is finalized. Alternate speakers are kept secret and
student seats on selection committees sometimes go vacant for
years.
Liz Cheadle, dean of students at the School of Law ““ who
is not directly involved in the selection process ““ said the
third-year classes usually plan the graduation, with that class
president asking for volunteers to sit on a speaker selection
committee.
In the past, the entire class would participate in an official
election of speakers or respond to an e-mail, but Cheadle said the
process was unproductive.
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This year, Cheadle and the third-year class president, Phil
Tate, decided that former secretary of state Warren Christopher
would make a good speaker. Tate then consulted the selection
committee, which agreed on the decision.
“(People) cannot legitimately say that they didn’t
have a say in the process,” Cheadle said.
Former commencement speakers at the School of Law include Rev.
Jesse Jackson and former Attorney General Janet Reno.
Aimee Dorr, dean of the Graduate School of Education and
Information Studies, said a commencement speaker committee at that
school forwards recommendations to her, and she makes the final
decision.
Dorr appoints the committee members through consultation with
the Faculty Executive Committee, which is composed of faculty and
two student representatives ““ one each from the Department of
Education and Information Studies.
The selection committee consists of two faculty members from
each department, but it did not have student representation in the
selection of first lady Laura Bush, who recently rejected the
invitation.
Christine Borgman, chair of the FEC, said students “were
never explicitly excluded in the past, but they just never
volunteered to be a part of the committee.”
Neither Dorr nor members of the FEC invited students to join the
selection committee. During the past three years she has been dean,
Dorr said there has never been student representation.
Tina Arora, a graduate student in psychological studies in
education and co-president of the Graduate Students Association in
Education, said GSAE is concerned with the lack of student
representation on the commencement speaker committee.
“We had always thought there were students on every
committee in the college of education,” Arora said.
After flyers were put up against having the first lady as a
commencement speaker, Dorr met with students in mid-March. Even
then, the input was retroactive and alternative speakers were not
released.
Certain parts of the selection process, such as identities of
the speakers, must be kept confidential, Borgman said,
“because their names need to be protected.”
Because alternate names are not released, students are put in a
position where they must approve or oppose a speaker without
knowing the alternates.
Dean Gerdeman, a third-year doctoral student in higher education
and organizational change and GSAE representative, said he has an
opportunity to freely express his sentiments about a speaker.
“I do not feel the dean needs the approval of the student
body in the GSEIS before inviting a commencement speaker, though I
would feel completely comfortable expressing my opinions to the
dean on such a matter,” he said.
Dorr said that during a recent meeting with FEC members, the
group proposed adding three students who plan on attending the
commencement ceremony to the commencement committee.
“Next year, I am going to put students on the
committee,” she said. “I don’t have any objection
to it at all.”
Former GSEIS commencement speakers include Sen. Sheila Keuhl and
former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.
California State Assemblyman Herb Wesson was single-handedly
selected as commencement speaker for the School of Public Policy
and Social Research by the dean, Barbara Nelson.
“He would be the perfect fit, especially for the
students,” she said.
During the late 1990s, Nelson said, commencement speakers were
selected through input from students, faculty, friends and
herself.
In 1999 and 2000, a formal committee was established, consisting
of seven to 10 students and graduate advisors, with the students
gathering input from the student body.
“The major problem with these approaches was that after
everyone deliberated (and) settled on the choice more than once, we
weren’t able, after months of trying, to get that
choice,” Nelson said. “Any process that leaves you
still looking for a commencement speaker in May is not a good
process.”
So Nelson abandoned the selection committee in favor of a
personal hand-picking.
In the future, she said, the dean and academic dean would
consider possible speakers during the summer prior to the academic
year, then seek suggestions from members of the school.
V.C. Powe, executive director of external programs at the
school, said that since the dean had made a decision regarding a
school-wide speaker, students were given an opportunity to decide
whether they wanted a speaker for their respective department
celebrations.