Congratulations Jimmy!

*** I am very late in posting this. I started it the night of the graduation. I was tired and put it aside to finish the next day and got so busy I forgot it was here. Better late than never?***

It's official... well except for the diploma which is 'in the mail'... LOL. Yesterday (May 13, 2010) was Jimmy's graduation from Temple University, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. We are very proud of him. He set a goal, chose his school, made his way through and five years later he proudly accepted his place as a Temply Owl Alumni.

We (Dave, Gumpop and I) arrived at lot #7 around 8:30 and made our way to the Liacourus center where the first ceremony was held beginning at 10:00 a.m. I did not want to be stuck in traffic or waiting in line to get in or end up sitting in the rafters. As it turned out we made very good time driving there and although we were certainly not alone there was plenty of room and time for us to find a 'good' seat.

The program gave us a general diagram of where the grads would be sitting so we chose which side to sit on based on where the College of Engineering students would be seated. We didn't know it at the time we chose the seats of course but we ended smack dab in from of the aisle where jimmy would be seated. To the left is our viewof the stage. notice the white chairs. It took Dave only a few minutes to realize why some of the chairs were white and some were red. So off he went to take the picture on the right to show you.

Here is a very blurry picture of jimmy arriving at his seat. The lighting was very low, I had to zoom in and I'm not a good enough photographer to take good photos in those conditions but here it is anyway. Notice that he is between two taller graduates so once he was seated it was difficult to see him. however, he did peek around them a few times so we could get a smile and a wave.

The honorary doctorate was bestowed on Patti Labelle. She was so "cute". I say that with sincere respect. She was truly honored by the experience and took it all in as if she were 20 something recieving her first degree. She commented that she was proud to be in her hometown where people told you if you were 'cool or not' and she was so happy they thought she was cool enough to recieve this honor. she sang for the crowd and a millisecond too late I hit the record button on my camera. Just before this clip starts she sings "I messed up the words".. .For some reason I can't figure out how to load the video here.... Google changed it's format. So you'll have to trust me it was funny.

The speakers at the ceremony were very good. Short and simple and too the point. The president of the university spoke about her memories of her own graduation where their was someone up on stage "It could have been the president, i'm not sure" acknowledging that she wasn't the most important person in the room depsite her position. The class speaker was a Philosophy major with a minor in political science. Now what image does that conure up for you? Trash that. This woman (I have to resist the urge to call them all children after all the are 22-23 years old now) anyway she should have been a drama major. The umph she put into her speech - totally memorized by the way- was neat. the content of both speeches included talk of how great the student body was and how they can/should go out and change the world now that they have graduated.

And then there was Bill cosby. What would a Temple graduation be without him? I had forgotten that connection, in fact he wasn't on the day's program, until he arrived. So we were treated to a bill cosby routine as well. In contrast to the speakers before him, Mr. cosby spoke to the "C" student...He said that one day when he has a stroke and ends up in the hospital he knows it's possible that one of these students could possible be his doctor who will say " Well I know what 70% of your problem is and i hope the other 30% is multiple choice!".

speeches over the degrees were conferred. Each college stood when there turn came as the chairman and dean of their school/department 'graduated' them. There was no walking up for diplomas at this ceremony. That came later.

The college of Engineering 'received' their degrees in a ceremony at the Baptist Temple which Temple purchased a few years ago and renovated. There was a punch and snack reception before the ceremony. We were able to see all the displays of the senior design projects. Jimmy's group was one of two that had 'real' projects. That is it wasn't just a paper, they actually completed the project. I posted a slide show in a previous blog about their work. I have a picture of the graduate with the final project but this post is really late in getting posted so I'll have to add it later.

The graduation ceremony for the Engineering students was nice. I opted to take video him walking across the stage instead of trying to capture a still picture. Again, I can't seem to load the video here so you'll have to take my word for it for now.

And since I'm so far behind in getting this posted I can tell you that Jimmy's design team took their project to Rhode Island for the EWRI senior design competition and they won! I asked jimmy what they get for winning (besides good stuff for their resumes). He said they recieved a plaque which forgot one very important member's name! HIS!!! EWRI is sending them a new plaque.