Commencement Thanks

From Rebecca Dixon, Coordinator of College Ceremonies and Events:

Thank you for making KSC Commencement 2017 a success!

It certainly takes an entire campus to pull together an event as large as commencement. I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the following:

Crowd Managers. These people answered the call for volunteers sent out in mid-March. They each attended a crowd management training session; they acted as ambassadors for our guests and were prepared to serve important roles in case of an emergency. For some, this was the first time, for others they’ve served this role for many, many years.

Thank you to all staff who donned the orange vests and welcomed guests to campus:

Carol Adler

Laurie Alden

Lynne Andrews

Karen Balnis

Bonnie Chamberlin

Cory Davis

Jennifer Drake-Deese

Jane Eklund

Heather Jasmin

Jeff Kazin

Sheila Kirby

Hunter Kirschner

Melanie Lizotte

Deb Logan

Cheryl Martin

Cheryl McCabe-Charron

Brenda McEachern

Amy Milne

Rocio Mora

Brandon Muncy

Susan Nelson

Phoebe Price

Lynne Rust

Matt Salter

Kim Schmidl-Gagne

Ralph Stuart

Sue Walthour

Deborah Williams

Emma Wilson

Faculty and Platform Support Staff. This small team makes the ceremony run smoothly – despite any last-minute hiccups.

Tremendous thanks to:

Lauren Bennett for putting in countless hours of prep work for honors convocation and commencement. She did it all, from organizing scripts to placing signs. She even managed all this while participating in commencement as a graduate student! Congratulations on achieving your Master’s degree, Lauren!

Brendan Denehy for being an excellent manager of ceremony logistics and for working with me throughout the year to continually make improvements to honors convocation and commencement. At the honors convocation he directs marshals, and at commencement he lines-up faculty before arriving backstage to provide scroll and other logistical support. He makes the ceremonies run like clockwork, even when something unexpectedly goes awry!

Michelle Fuller for devoting countless hours to preparing for honors convocation. Her hard work enables the ceremony to run efficiently and allows our student award recipients to shine! She also gives freely of her time at commencement so that any additional aspects - such as the platform party procession are accomplished with ease.

Kim Harkness for her kindness and sensitivity which provided the basis for our posthumous degree candidate’s family to attend and participate in the ceremony in an appropriate and thoughtful way.

Renee Harlow for attending pre-commencement BID, emergency staff meetings and trainings, and for shadowing the president on Commencement Saturday in order to alert her in case of a pending weather emergency. She handles this role with confidence and proficiency.

Cindy Krautwurst for coordinating the platform participation (and RSVPs) with diligence. She makes sure the platform procession runs smoothly, and all special guests of the College feel welcomed.

Michele Kuiawa, because in addition to her duties at graduate line-up, she ensures that the scrolls are distributed to each graduate quickly and proficiently. She also is willing and able to provide any additional platform support when needed.

Bethany Morin, who (in addition to graduate line-up) stood at the top of the ramp on the stage and paced the graduates as they walked to shake the president’s hand. This means almost two hours of telling graduates, “please pause, hand the reader your card, and walk to shake the president’s hand.”

Kim Schmidl-Gagne for managing faculty line-up for both honors convocation and commencement. She ensures faculty are in the correct order, handles any last-minute hitches, and does it all with a smile.

Lindsay Taflas, for in what may seem like a sea of people, she seats our special guests with dignity and lets them know that we are very glad that they could join us for this important occasion.

Vicki Warzecha for building and honing our graduate database for months prior to commencement to ensure our graduate information is correct and easily accessible. She also coordinates our ushers (a team made up of staff, students and alumni) and manages the information tent with effortlessness at the event.

Graduate Line-up Staff. This group acts as a finely tuned crew to welcome graduates to the gym, help them find their place alphabetically (!) by school, straighten regalia, answer all kinds of questions, soothe nerves, hydrate and focus 900+ graduates on getting out of the gym in an orderly procession. Casey Justice puts in countless hours of prep time, and leads the line-up team with a smile: she handles all issues - last-minute or otherwise - with grace. Thank you Casey!

Special thanks to all staff working in the gym to make sure our graduates process with style:

Lynne Andrews

Meg Barbato

Liz Cahoon

Cory Davis

Jen Ferrell

Jess Gagne-Cloutier

Britany Gallagher

Kevin Justice

Michele Kuiawa

Mel Lizotte

Robyn Lucius

Brandon Mathieu

Heather McCarthy

Bethany Morin

Sue Nelson

Sage Ober

Peg Richmond

Matt Salter

Jane Warner

Sasha Watt

Deb Williams

Jess Yon

Graduate Seating Coordinators. Have you ever wondered how the graduates are seated in the correct order on the Quad and walk across the stage so seamlessly?

Sue Castriotta and Gail Zimmerman along with a small team of student marshals ensure everyone in the Class of 2017 gets their moment on the stage. They make it look easy, though it is anything but: Thank you Sue and Gail!

Thank you to our Campus Safety Department, especially Len Crossman, Stuart Mitchell, and Barbara O’Connor, for their hours of pre-planning; coordination with community fire, police, and security; to ensure everyone’s safety with an additional 10,000 people on campus.

Thanks to the KSC Eco Reps and ROCKS, Matt Bacon, Cary Gaunt and staff for working to lighten the environmental footprint of commencement with 100% recycled print materials, reducing our use of plastic water bottles, and raising awareness to the importance of sustainability on campus. The team also stayed late to help clear the Quad of items that had been left behind and chairs.

Starting in November, Marketing and Communications staff is revamping the honors convocation and commencement pieces, and assisting with web pages – proofing, updating and suggesting revisions. Many thanks to Laura Borden, Chad Cassin, Russ Cobb, Jane Eklund, Lynn Roman, and Lucy Webb for your creativity, attention to detail and responsiveness. Media coverage onsite, and advanced emergency communication planning is in Kelly Ricaurte’s capable hands.

Thanks go to Media Services for coordinating with KSMP and Capron; providing our live stream, audio in the gym, and handling any issue that comes up with our equipment. Thanks Steve Armstrong and Rob Coleman!

Thank you, Jim Chesebrough, from the Music Department, for coordinating and conducting the Brass Ensemble Musicians for honors convocation and commencement. It is a fine group made possible by your musical expertise and attention to detail.

Our Physical Plant staff deserves tremendous recognition for making this event happen. They turn the Quad into a commencement venue with fencing, and chairs. For in-depth pre- and onsite planning, project management and coordinating with vendors for commencement – thank you Chris Cormier. Bud Winsor not only participates in months of pre-planning, he also manages vendors and coordinates grounds crew logistics, and he serves as severe weather spotter and the start of our chain of notification in case we need to postpone or curtail the ceremony. Also, it is important to recognize the natural beauty of our campus (you won’t find many campuses as lush as ours at commencement) thank you Joe Britton and Noah Washburn. Thanks to Travis Ellsworth for providing the layout and intense coordination for setting up just under 7,000 chairs on the Quad. In addition to the many tons of deliveries for the event, Bob MacKenzie also sets up thousands of chairs for the event. Liz Craighead is the organizational force behind getting all ceremonial items where they need to go – she also coordinates the platform layout – thank you Liz. Thanks to Scott St Pierre and Chris Lariviere for assisting with the gonfalon carriers and cueing the processional music. And of course it’s all hands on deck for the breakdown of chairs, and equipment. Thanks to the entire crew!

Many thanks to everyone in Redfern for ensuring that honors convocation looks and feels like a professional production – especially Alex Trombly, Lara Shields and Jeremy Robarge.

Thank you to all the staff in the Student Center, especially Wade Newer and Jen Ferrell for making guests feel welcome, answering questions, giving directions and providing a wonderful accommodation for guests to watch the ceremony indoors.

Barbara Hamel in the Registrar’s Office deserves a medal for her persistence and willingness to answer student questions (and my questions) at all hours in the weeks leading up to commencement. She certainly understands individual students’ anxiety and genuinely wants to help in any way possible to ensure they’ve completed everything they needed to in order to walk across the stage.

Thank you to Deb Barrett in Res Life for endless coordination of late-stay students at commencement.

Finally, I am grateful to my teacher, mentor and friend, Barbara Preston in the office of VPSA and EM for answering hundreds of commencement phone calls, listening to my frustrations and supporting my victories. Thank you.

You all made it happen for the Class of 2017! Hats off to you!

With sincere appreciation,

Rebecca Dixon