College graduation: A right of passage, academic closure

A BGSU graduate celebrates the end of commencement May 10. (Photo by Lori King/© Toledo Blade)

    College graduation.

    It's a right of passage I wish everyone in the world could experience!

    There's nothing like renting or buying that symbolic black gown, and wearing it down the aisle and across the stage to accept a diploma. Some wear formal wear under it. Others wear flip flops and shorts. One guy during the Bowling Green State University commencement walked across the stage bare foot!

    There's also nothing like securing that tassel to the right side of your head before the ceremony, and then flipping it to the other side near the end of it. Such a small thing really, but that little gesture for so many of the graduates means the end of adolescence, and the beginning of adulthood.

    There's no doubt a college graduation ceremony is a well-earned, shared experience of tears and cheers. It's also bittersweet because graduates are leaving a special place they loved for years, and sometimes hated. They are bidding farewell to friends they've made, and will inevitably lose.

    I was fortunate enough to have graduated from college twice. I received my Bachelor of Science degree in photojournalism from Kent State in 1991, and my Master's of Arts in journalism education, also from Kent, in 2012. Though quite a few people I know chose to not walk, I wouldn't have missed those moments of academic closure for the world!

    As I recently shot yet another graduation ceremony at BGSU for the Toledo Blade, I couldn't help but get teary-eyed and emotional myself as I witnessed the tears and grins on the faces of graduates and their families and friends. It was my pleasure to document that special moment in their lives.

    So, it's in this spirit that I congratulation all of the college graduates who just earned their degrees this weekend. I am proud of you all!

   To view the photo gallery from the BGSU graduation morning ceremony May 10 (and to see the barefoot dude), click here. 

Power of photography, speech freedom: topics for guest speakers at University of Toledo, Kent State University

 Next week is going to be a monumental week for college and high school journalism/photojournalism students throughout the Buckeye State.  

   Two very respected and influential speakers will grace our college campuses to talk about:

·      the powers of the photographic image

·      speech freedom “within the schoolhouse gate”

   The first to arrive is David Hume Kennerly, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who will speak at the UT Student Union Oct. 3.

   Kennerly’s lecture and slide show, entitled “Witness: the Power of the Photographic Image,” will highlight his worldwide travels and famous shoots, including Nixon’s farewell speech, Vietnam War combat coverage and RFK’s speech prior to his assassination. He is a Canon Explorer of Light, and won the 1972 Pulitzer for feature photography.

   Owens Community College photography students are encouraged to attend Kennerly’s free lecture. Owens Prof. Ruth Foote is working on scheduling a bus to transport those interested in attending. I will be on that bus!

   The second speaker is Mary Beth Tinker, known for her courageous victory in the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court Case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District.

   Tinker will speak at the annual Ohio Student Media Assoc. workshops at Kent State University Oct. 1 as part of her national Tinker Tour.

   More than 400 high school students will get to hear Tinker revisit those years in the late 1960s, when free speech in schools wasn’t protected by the highest court in the land.

   Tinker was a young teenager then who refused to remove a black armband that she wore in protest to the Vietnam War. She took her school to court when they suspended her for her silent protest. Out of that court case came these famous words:

Students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." - Justice Abe Fortas

    Not only will I get to hear Tinker speak, I am one of the many workshop presenters. My topic will be Ethical Dilemmas In Photojournalism.

   Is it next week yet?