 "Photo: Jen Stiles/Cardinal Points")
Ever since Nicole Immerso stepped onto the Plattsburgh State campus, she dreamt of addressing fellow classmates at her commencement ceremony.
She envisioned all of her peers focusing on her as she encapsulated her four years at PSUC into a five-minute speech that spoke to everyone in the crowd.
But when Immerso went to apply to become this year’s commencement speaker, she ran into a problem — she didn’t meet the criteria.
To be eligible to speak during graduation, a student needs to graduate either Magna Cum Laude, a grade point average between 3.7 and 3.89, or Summa Cum Laude, 3.9 to 4.0.
If the student meets these requirements, he or she can send a draft of a speech to the Honors Council, which consists of six students and six faculty members. The council then decides who will speak at commencement.
Immerso’s cumulative GPA at PSUC, 3.56, is 0.14 points shy from being eligible to live out her dream.
“When I found out that I was ineligible, I felt like all my hard work and efforts during my time at PSUC went void,” Immerso said. “I spoke at my high school graduation, and it was the greatest experience of my life. I still have the speech and the video tape.”
But Immerso didn’t let her dream simply fade away.
After being denied the opportunity to apply, Immerso started a petition against the selection process and has asked the Student Association to come up with a resolution changing how a student speaker is chosen.
As of Feb. 18, she had 198 signatures.
SA President Charlie Peppers said Sen. Charles Sanchez has drafted a resolution, which will be further discussed at the next legislative meeting.
“I’m very positive about it. It looks great,” Peppers said of the resolution. “It’s basically the Student Association’s stance on supporting the well-rounded nature of the commencement-speaker selection process and causing it to be well-rounded in the future.”
Peppers said the SA’s mission is to draft a resolution that “encapsulates” the entire student body.
In Immerso’s opinion, the current process doesn’t do this. The fact that the sole criteria necessary to become the commencement speaker is based on academic performance is unfair, she said.
“I feel like the student speaker, now, is the outlier of the student population,” Immerso said. “They don’t represent the whole student body. They could have done nothing but achieve academic excellence while they were here and still be allowed to apply.”
A better approach to the selection process, Immerso said, would be to have the process based on a point system similar to that of Omicron Delta Kappa. The national leadership honor society awards students with points for accomplishments other than academic achievement, such as involvement in sports or on-campus clubs and organizations. This way, the selection process would incorporate more of the student body.
But in the eyes of David Mowry, president of the Honors Council, academic achievement is what commencement is all about.
“Commencement is the celebration of the completion of an academic program — that’s the only thing that qualifies a student for being at commencement,” Mowry said. “It isn’t that the college doesn’t value students who are involved in all other types of activities on campus — the contributions they make are very significant and are very important to all of us. But the reason we have focused on students’ academic excellence as the deciding criteria is because that’s what commencement is all about.”
Nevertheless, Mowry said he sees some legitimacy in Immerso’s argument and has brought the topic to the Honors Council agenda.
Mowry said the council is considering allowing students who graduate Cum Laude into the application process, which would drop the necessary GPA requirement to 3.4.
“I think there is a good argument to be made that if we are going to use graduation honors as the criteria, then maybe we should include all the students who are graduating with honors — the Cum Laudes, Magna Cum Laudes and Summa Cum Laudes,” Mowry said.
The only problem this would create, Mowry said, is the increase in workload.
He said the process of reviewing speeches is “difficult and time consuming,” so before making this change, it would be necessary to see whether they could handle the increased workload.
“Even if you combine all the Magna Cum Laudes and Summa Cum Laudes, it’s a smaller number than the Cum Laudes because the further down you go, the bigger number it becomes,” Mowry said.
With the current selection process, Mowry said the Honors Council receives around 12 speeches for spring commencement. This number could be raised to around 20 if Cum Laude members were allowed to apply.
But with any type of experiment, Mowry said adjustments could be made in the future to curtail initial problems, and that the likeliness of a change to the current process is “very high” because of people’s willingness to test out modifications to the system.
While PSUC President John Ettling said he has been happy with the commencement speakers this system has produced in the past, he wouldn’t be against a change in the system as long as the modifications were reasonable and rational.
“I’m not opposed to any change whatsoever,” Ettling said. “I’m not dedicated to the current system. It was in place when I arrived here.”
The fact that this system has been around for as long as both Ettling and Mowry have been at PSUC is one reason Immerso thinks it should be changed.
“This system is based on tradition, and tradition is a cornerstone that you improve upon, not something that remains stagnant,” Immerso said.
And it’s this change in tradition that Immerso is really after.
Her real battle doesn’t revolve around her desire to speak at commencement. Instead, it focuses on revamping the current system to encompass more of the student population.
“I’m not after a one-time exemption being made for me,” Immerso said. “I want the whole process to be revised. Even if nothing happens this year, as long as the issue still holds weight after I leave, then I’ll feel like I did something good.”
12 comments
And in regards to the comment that was posted a little while ago I would like to remark...Well I do understand your point of view, about being selfish and wanting to speak again, a key point in the article that you may have missed is that my main goal from the beginning was to get the whole process changed. I thought the process was unfair, not just the fact that I wasn't allowed to speak. If the only change that comes out of this is that more of my peers are allowed to submit an application and get a chance to address the graduating class I will be thrilled.Even with the changes now being set in place I am still not guaranteed to be able to address my fellow graduates. Myself, just like everyone else has to submit a speech and the best one is picked. There is still competition involved. But now even more people are allowed to apply. And as far as my reasoning goes there are a number of reasons why I wanted to do it. Plattsburgh, as it has done for many other people, has shaped who I have becomes as an adult. It has done more for me in my 4 years than anything else I have done in my life. I want to relay to students how incredible an opportunity this was for me, and what could be accomplished when you apply yourself, and reach outside of your comfort zone. ALSO, I am not claiming I will write the best speech, many people have had an equally rewarding experience, but I at least wanted the chance to apply. Attention was and will never be my goal. The attention deserves to go to all of those graduating, for all of their hard work and diligence. Thank you for letting me clarify that and if you would like to speak to be more about my reasons for doing this please feel free to get in touch with me personallyMAY THE BEST SPEECH WIN!