On a mission for equal recognition

The 2012 Gonzaga University commencement ceremony may be a little more colorful than in years past.  Instead of having only the traditional American and Canadian flags, there may be flags from every country from which Gonzaga has graduates. 

Woo Kim, GSBA international student senator, is behind the initiative to find a way to acknowledge his fellow international classmates at the ceremony.

 "I think it is Gonzaga's responsibility for us to appreciate what we have here," Kim said. "Gonzaga always talks about ‘multicultural, multicultural, we have 20 percent of multicultural students on campus this year,' and they celebrate about it, they make publicity out of it, however, when did we ever appreciate something that we had in here?"

The international students who applied to graduate this year will represent 17 countries.

"Typically, they have done four years of course work, a lot of times in a second, or third, or fourth language. They deserve to be recognized," said Melissa Heid, International Student Program coordinator. "They're bringing diversity to campus, they're bringing all of these things, and so I understand the desire to be recognized. This is an accomplishment." 

Discussion about acknowledging the international students at graduation started in May of last year when Heid went on a business trip to Canada. 

"It was a conference for people who have jobs like mine that work with international students," Heid said.  "They had these really cool sashes. You could get your Gonzaga crest on one side and the country flag on the other side."

When the fall semester began, Kim had similar thoughts and embraced the responsibility of seeing this through. 

"Woo really wanted to take this challenge on," Heid said.  "I think students have a lot of power at the university and I really want him to be able to do this."

The original plan to have sashes for the international students was turned down when Kim brought the idea before Susie Prusch, manager of university events. 

According to Prusch students are expected to wear attire that is strictly academic at the commencement ceremony. Wearing a sash to symbolize the completion of a degree in a non-native language does not qualify.

"I feel like that's a real misnomer because I know that, for example, ambassadors get recognized at graduation, and to my knowledge, ambassadors are not in any way academically tied," Heid said.

"They are students who get recommended and then they are acknowledged at graduation. The university is using that as a smokescreen," Heid said.  "I understand that they don't want to open the floodgates either and so every person gets acknowledged for something at graduation."

Kim was discouraged, but his next idea was to have the flags at the ceremony.  Prusch approved this idea, but Kim still needs approval from Dr. Patricia O'Connell Killen, academic vice president.  Prusch will present the idea to her in a meeting which has yet to be scheduled.

"I, of course, will say something to Dr. Killen," Prusch said. "She's very much on board with making this ceremony absolutely a wonderful celebration."

The International Student Programs office already has the flags for the ceremony.  The one concern Prusch has is how they will be displayed.  She hopes to have them each on a stand and line them across the back of the stage.

"I don't want a wire with a whole bunch of flags draping down," Prusch said.  "I want it to be a little bit more elegant, a little more honorable."

In addition to the flags, Prusch hopes to have the names of international students who are graduating and where they are from listed in the back of the program. 

Heid is getting eager to find out if this plan will be approved.

"It feels like this is taking way longer than it needs to," Heid said.  "There could have been a five-minute meeting between all of us, but I feel like it's kind of drawn out.  I think something is going to happen, but it still isn't 100 percent settled and it's been several months."

Kim wants to talk with the international students to find out if this is something they really want.  He also plans to look at other schools and observe their methods of recognizing international students at commencement.

One school that recognized their international students during their commencement ceremony was Eastern Washington University. The last time they did so was in 1999. 

"We would string the flags across the ceiling, but since we moved the ceremony outdoors we don't do that anymore," said Dale Smith, graduation evaluator at EWU.

According to Mark Baker, the associate registrar at Whitworth University, in 2008, at Whitworth, any students who were studying abroad who were missing their own graduation back home, were permitted to walk at the ceremony and were recognized specially.

"As far as students who were from another country and doing all four years here at Whitworth, we don't have any special recognition for them," Baker said.