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  Daily Bruin File Photo Graduating students often attend commencement ceremonies where they listen to speakers they had no part in selecting.

By Roopa Raman

Daily Bruin Contributor

Graduation has always served as a final gesture to students for accomplishments they have made throughout their education.

But at the UCLA School of Law, School of Public Policy and Social Welfare and the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, student input in the selection of a ceremony speaker is capped – or excluded altogether for the sake of “efficiency.”

In all these cases, the student body hears about a speaker after the selection is finalized. Alternate speakers are kept secret and student seats on selection committees sometimes go vacant for years.

Liz Cheadle, dean of students at the School of Law – who is not directly involved in the selection process – said the third-year classes usually plan the graduation, with that class president asking for volunteers to sit on a speaker selection committee.

In the past, the entire class would participate in an official election of speakers or respond to an e-mail, but Cheadle said the process was unproductive.

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This year, Cheadle and the third-year class president, Phil Tate, decided that former secretary of state Warren Christopher would make a good speaker. Tate then consulted the selection committee, which agreed on the decision.

“(People) cannot legitimately say that they didn’t have a say in the process,” Cheadle said.

Former commencement speakers at the School of Law include Rev. Jesse Jackson and former Attorney General Janet Reno.

Aimee Dorr, dean of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, said a commencement speaker committee at that school forwards recommendations to her, and she makes the final decision.

Dorr appoints the committee members through consultation with the Faculty Executive Committee, which is composed of faculty and two student representatives – one each from the Department of Education and Information Studies.

The selection committee consists of two faculty members from each department, but it did not have student representation in the selection of first lady Laura Bush, who recently rejected the invitation.

Christine Borgman, chair of the FEC, said students “were never explicitly excluded in the past, but they just never volunteered to be a part of the committee.”

Neither Dorr nor members of the FEC invited students to join the selection committee. During the past three years she has been dean, Dorr said there has never been student representation.

Tina Arora, a graduate student in psychological studies in education and co-president of the Graduate Students Association in Education, said GSAE is concerned with the lack of student representation on the commencement speaker committee.

“We had always thought there were students on every committee in the college of education,” Arora said.

After flyers were put up against having the first lady as a commencement speaker, Dorr met with students in mid-March. Even then, the input was retroactive and alternative speakers were not released.

Certain parts of the selection process, such as identities of the speakers, must be kept confidential, Borgman said, “because their names need to be protected.”

Because alternate names are not released, students are put in a position where they must approve or oppose a speaker without knowing the alternates.

Dean Gerdeman, a third-year doctoral student in higher education and organizational change and GSAE representative, said he has an opportunity to freely express his sentiments about a speaker.

“I do not feel the dean needs the approval of the student body in the GSEIS before inviting a commencement speaker, though I would feel completely comfortable expressing my opinions to the dean on such a matter,” he said.

Dorr said that during a recent meeting with FEC members, the group proposed adding three students who plan on attending the commencement ceremony to the commencement committee.

“Next year, I am going to put students on the committee,” she said. “I don’t have any objection to it at all.”

Former GSEIS commencement speakers include Sen. Sheila Keuhl and former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.

California State Assemblyman Herb Wesson was single-handedly selected as commencement speaker for the School of Public Policy and Social Research by the dean, Barbara Nelson.

“He would be the perfect fit, especially for the students,” she said.

During the late 1990s, Nelson said, commencement speakers were selected through input from students, faculty, friends and herself.

In 1999 and 2000, a formal committee was established, consisting of seven to 10 students and graduate advisors, with the students gathering input from the student body.

“The major problem with these approaches was that after everyone deliberated (and) settled on the choice more than once, we weren’t able, after months of trying, to get that choice,” Nelson said. “Any process that leaves you still looking for a commencement speaker in May is not a good process.”

So Nelson abandoned the selection committee in favor of a personal hand-picking.

In the future, she said, the dean and academic dean would consider possible speakers during the summer prior to the academic year, then seek suggestions from members of the school.

V.C. Powe, executive director of external programs at the school, said that since the dean had made a decision regarding a school-wide speaker, students were given an opportunity to decide whether they wanted a speaker for their respective department celebrations.

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