$40 grand a year .... Did you get a chance to read Walt Whitman?

--virgil

Actually, the ColorNine the tuition is a little above $30k and the other living expenses at the college (room and board) push the figure to $40k per year. I should have written in my post above the cost of going to school there for a year. My bad.

The costs have also skyrocketed at my old alma mater, UC Berkeley. It costs more than ten times today than what I paid when I attended. That is cruel and unusual punishment for bright kids and their families. So many today start out in such a big hole financially after going to college that people start to question the value of even attending. And so many degrees are not any guarantee of getting work upon completion.  Welcome to the debtor nation reality boys and girls. It's not how much you are worth it is how much you owe.

Ouch!  Is that what it costs now?  It wasn't anywhere near that expensive when I went there centuries ago, adam, but I suppose it was still expensive for it's time.  That aside, I think I got a pretty good education there. . . . and found a husband.  ;-)

If a person can get a scholarship to a school like Knox, big kudos. Not many earning a median salary in these parts of $30k a year is going to be able to spend nearly $40k per year on the tuition. Congrats to you on having attended such a prestigious school.

For a small liberal arts school, my alma mater has had some fairly recognizable names speak at commencement, especially in the last five years:

  (complete list here)

2009

• Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois

2008

• Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State

2007

• William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative

2006

• Stephen Colbert, political satirist and star of The Colbert Report

2005

• Barack Obama, U.S. Senator from Illinois

Universities will usually ask the student body or a student committee for names or a selection from a list of people to speak at the graduation.

Maybe because Bill Cosby is all booked up.

I just have one question. If graduation speaches aren't the places for politics, why do so many universities invite political figures to give the speaches?

My son just recently graduated from another Calfornia State University. A woman, who formerly attended college at this CSU, spoke for a period of  about fifteen minutes about political subjects that ranged from oppression in Arabic countries for women and other minorities to economic challenges the world and education face today. She commented on the struggle of the impoverished throughout the world and challenged the student body to also continue their education, and to work to make a difference.

This speech from Dolores Huerta rambled over a number of points, but certainly did not hijack the proceedings. I am surprised that such a strong advocate of human rights and the co-founder of the UFW gets such little respect from the general community here. The woman is 79 years old, and deserves some respect.

I am not sure why asking students to read important news sources such as the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, Mother Jones and The Progressive while not using Rush Limbaugh as a news source would be disturbing to anyone. Rush doesn't get or give the news, he just opines with a very tilted perspective on news stories he finds provocative. That is not a news source, that is an opinion source. 

Also, I fail to understand why people are so hostile towards unions and what they provide for working people. Almost 36% of the  private  sector workforce in the 1950s were union members. The percentage today in the private sector is around 8% today. Maybe the reason everyone works for apittance out in the private sector today (excluding our crack top management teams in all those bustling industries the tax payer subsidizes everyday) is that unions have been wiped out through a non-stop attacks on labor and wages, the outsourcing of all manufacturing and reduction of skilled labor to drone work in most of our industries today. If you want to continue living on the bottom and learning to like it continue to attack collective bargaining and all that it represents in the forms of benefits, work week hours, disability insurance, social security and workman's compensation.

virgil,

I loved the video. As a substitute teacher, I felt tension rising within me when I saw the paper airplanes and crumpled up papers being thrown in the class.

That sir, is a broad generalization.  Even if they are, so what?  It's about the subject matter.  Colleges and universities are trying to hire experts in their field.  Don't be afraid, They're intellectuals, first.  Even if you are a conservative, and you tell the "commie" English professor how much you love Chaucer, he'll love you as a student despite him teaming with the Geology and Biology professors in their next commie coup.  I've had no professor more leftist than I (or one willing to admit it)

instruct, oh SORRY, PROFESSOR

Do you even know the difference (i.e. instructor vs. professor)?

 I think every graduating student should have read, at leats once,  Walt Whitman ...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

--virgil

free from government intervention

then kindly explain why close to 100 percent of the politics at any public university is leftist?  how is that free political thinking?  that, kind sir, is group think.

They also prey on the students, forcing them to look at politics through their eyes for the quarter, semester, whatever.  Then can hold for ransom, a needed grade in a class, if the student doesnt profess what the instructor wants to hear

FREEDOM???

hardly

friends forever !    :   )

--virgil

 I hate politics ...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

( sigh ) ... graduation ceremonies should be cute .

--virgil

Universities are a place for politics and political ideas free from government intervention, especially ones funded by the government (which is just about every university).

"Did Dolores Huerta hijack Cal State Bakersfield's graduation?"  I can answer that without putting myself through the frustration of listening. That is all she ever speaks of ( her agendas ). Nuff said...

I couldn't even finish listening to that political diatribe.

Nancy, you are absolutely right about what the content of a graduation speech should be.  Here's one I wish I could have heard in person:  http://www.youtube.com/watc...  If you don't want to take the time to watch it, the text is here.

Graduation ceremonies aren't the place for politics

Ill do you one better, ANY school that is ran off of ANY TYPE of government funds isn't a place for politics, YET.......with less than 1 percent of public universities NOT being the norm, it is the rule to be a leftist COMMIE tard, and to browbeat your students if their social views deviate the slightest from instruct, oh SORRY, PROFESSOR

education is supposed to be objective, with a multitude of learning styles.  politics makes it subjective

Oh, and an investment tip for you guys... if minimum wage goes to $25/hr, invest in commodities... or the Euro / Yen

The only graduation I looked forward to was when I graduated from undergrad. I didn't want to go to my high school graduation because I was embarrassed of being a summer school graduate and I was over the pomp and circumstance by the time I finished grad school.  I was just ready to get back into a regular Army unit.

Good Lord that was excruciating to sit through.  It felt much longer.  I think the video is only about half.   

My Favorite Parts:

Shout for unity!!! Wozani... we are so proud Obama was elected, unity!!  (Isn't this the same gal who blasted him during the primaries when she was a shill for Clinton?).  This takes the cake for the most awkward part.  She called for us to all stand in unity and chant her unity phrase "Wozani."  A good portion of the audience, after sitting through this entire thing, actually played along, and in the middle of their cheers get interrupted with the Obama plug, causing a few members of the audience to stand up and "whoo" along with her, as if to tell the rest of us "were are all one people, homosapiens, except for the rest of you." 

Or the part where she uses a graduation to promote union legislation that removes right for a worker to vote for a union by secret ballot.  Hell, my mom is union and is against this.  Isn't a voice free from coercion a pretty basic principle of our society?

The part where she criticizes the bailouts (socialization of the bank and finance markets), but then later goes on to criticize those who think what Obama is doing is wrong, and that socialisim is awesome (because, like, Finland totally does it).  An interesting contradiction that left me scratching my head.

Corrections/Peace officers are mostly uneducated and way overpaid (that one went over well for the officer sitting in front of me as well as the group of thirty something criminal justice majors in her audience).

Republicans hate Latinos (oh wait, wrong speech)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6460536.html - She talked about this for a while
 

Oh, yeah and something about the KKK... by that time things were getting near comical and the audience started to laugh.

Somewhere along the way she forgot that people were graduating.  I get what she's saying, I actually agree with some of it!  It's just that her way of getting to the point was off base and downright divisive.  Who on earth is going to chant "Wozani" and be unified with her by the end but the niche few that already agree with every single thing she said? I don't mind a little left or right leaning spin in a speech like this, but to take the audience hostage under false pretenses and use it for political grandstanding, and no forum for reproach, was just offensive in my book.  I admit I lean to the right on many issues, but I also agree with her on certain issues, especially regarding the basic rights of farmworkers.  I can say confidently that I would be equally, if not more disgusted if this had been someone using the platform to denounce gays, flaunt their pro-life views, insult Obama, etc.  And why?  Because it makes the rest of us look bad.

I will go out on a limb and suggest that she did nothing to shape the minds of the people in that audience, and that, folks, isn't standing up for what you believe in, it's just stupid. 

Used to be graduation was a mandatory affair if a student wanted his diploma. Is this still the norm? Wonder how many grads would attend if given the option of attending the ceremony or simply getting the diploma in the mail.

Whatever Ms. Huerta's passions, I doubt the grads are motivated the change the world according to her agenda. They want to put the diploma to work with a job. Good luck with that.

Graduation ceremonies aren't the place for politics. They aren't the place for preaching, either.

As usual, I completely agree with Nancy. I went to my sister's graduation at CSUB a couple of years ago. It was boring.

I started watching the video, but I couldn't take any more than two minutes of it. Booooooring, and from that two minutes I can say that I believe she did hijack the graduation to use it as political speech. I don't think that is right. Why should students who are there to graduate from CSUB have to listen to her speech? Some of them may agree with her, but many probably did not, and I don't see why anyone who doesn't agree should be forced to listen to it. The majority of them, I bet, didn't care at all what she had to say, so why should they have let her speak at all?

Come on.  Haven't you heard the news?  Hispanic women and smarter and better than white males.  

I don't think a graduation ceremony should have any political leanings.  It's supposed to be about the bright stars they all will be and hope for their future.  It's supposed to be about THEM since it's THEIR day.

All said and done, I've found almost every graduation I've ever been to to be long, tedious and boring.  I'd like to see ONE  prominent figure speak and the rest of the speeches come from the grads.

(I sat through a lot of them because it was improtant to be there for support...whether they admit it or not, most students of any age are darned proud of what they've accomplished.  And I'm proud of them enough to sit through e  n  d  l  e  s  s  ceremonies.)

Huerta needed to give it a rest for just that one day.

As I listened to this video, the main message seemed to be about the inequities of the system and the importance of working for social justice. Nothing wrong with that.

As for the more provocative parts, Huerta is going to say what she is going to say. If CSUB didn't want that, they shouldn't have invited her. It's like asking Malcolm X to make a speech that's not provocative. It's not going to happen. The same people who complained about her talk probably listen in rapt awe when O'Reilly, Hannity, Rush and Savage spew their nonsense.

Some people may have disagreed with her, and that's fine, but college students and others better get used to hearing people with different opinions because they'll be doing it their whole lives. 

During my CSUB graduation, a CSUB alumnus and Thomas follower spoke and said something to the effect that I was traumitized when Al Gore won the presidency, fortunately it was fixed. Then she praised George Bush. It was in 2002. Graduation was very boring. My parents forced me to attend.