AZ State Uni Commencement, and Convocation!

On 15 Dec Brenda and I flew out to Tempe to attend Andrew's Ph.D. graduation. I served as Marshall for scores (literally) of UA graduations, but this was different.  On Mon., at 1330 we witnessed the commencement ceremony for all graduating Graduate students at ASU. We were a bit surprised, that unlike UA, ASU has all the Doctoral hooding simultaneously whilst the students and their mentors are at their seats. Then, like UA, every student has their name called, gets their "diploma" (really an empty cover, with diploma mailed later) along with a handshake from the ASU President.

     As I have written, Andrew and his parents were not sure he was ever gonna finish his degree, right up until October. The prayers of many, and a benevolent G^d brought this to pass. It was a JOY to see this celebration. This was Andrew's mentor's FIRST time to ever hood a student. This was great surprise to me. Out of my 52 Ph.D.s that I chaired, I think I only missed one or two hooding ceremonies.
     On Tuesday at 0900, the same ceremony, called convocation this time, was essentially repeated, without the hooding. This was Undergrads and Grads from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Andrew's name was again called and he walked across the stage and got another diploma cover and shook hands with the Dean. We were a bit surprised at how similar the two ceremonies were.
     After convocation came two nice things. We had about an hour to kill, so Andrew gave us a walking tour of the campus. The grounds are beautiful, with many mimosa, pines, bougainvilla, and most surprising, lots of citrus fruit trees bearing fruit. We saw several varieties of organges, and a grapefruit tree. We then had a nice reception that included a full meal, dessert and a very tasty large cake.