Let me just start by saying to the class of 2014: I hear your cries, and I understand why you are upset. We have every right to be angry with the university for telling us in the 11th hour that many of our loved ones may not be able to share our special day at graduation with us.
But let me also say this: As upcoming graduates of this great university, I hope that we do not take some of the attitudes many of us have taken toward USC in this situation out into the real world. In the past 24 hours, I have seen countless posts on social media about anger toward the administration, petitions calling to rescind our invitation to the vice president of the United States of America to our university, and general ignorance from people who haven’t done the slightest bit of research on their own.
But nowhere in these posts have I seen one person with a constructive, compromising, tangible idea to solve this problem. Where would our country be if great leaders that have come before us had just complained and not offered or fought for real solutions? As people about to complete a degree from a four-year institution, I would hope that you could offer more than just shutting our doors to one of the most influential men in America.
This event is a celebration of the culmination of years of hard work. Our university’s motto, “Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros,” means “Learning humanizes character and does not permit it to be cruel.” I implore my fellow graduates to use the learning they have done at this university, and the character they have developed, to think of plausible solutions. Do not permit cruelty and the complaints that come without offering an answer.
Complaining will not get you any more tickets, and it will not get you anywhere in life. Take action, use the knowledge from the degree you have worked so hard for, and offer something concrete rather than just typing your name into a computer screen on a petition with a title that is frankly insulting to the vice president.
It took me all of 10 minutes to think of possible solutions such as hosting the Friday ceremony in the football stadium to offer more seating for families, or splitting the ceremony into two graduations. Who knows what kinds of other answers the brainpower of 2014 could come up with if we just stepped away from our complaints to work toward a better solution.
— Molly Wyatt, fourth-year public relations student