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Reflect and Connect

Why is graduation a special time for you?

See how BYU employees like you answered this question.

Two years ago the college was in need of extra hands to serve as ushers during graduation, so I volunteered. At college convocation I was positioned to direct students onto the stage to receive their diploma. I was a little nervous; I was almost singlehandedly managing the flow of students onto the stage, and felt pressure to keep the timing just right. But as the procession of students to the stage began, I quickly forgot the pressure and became immersed in the truly wonderful experience of making eye contact with every single student to cross the stage. Some of the students I knew, but most I did not. And yet I had a brief moment with every one of them, to meet their eyes, smile, and come into contact with the individual in the mass of identical robes. They all had a story, they had all had been through challenges and triumphs, they had family and friends and teachers who were celebrating this day with them. I don't know how to adequately describe just what I felt that day, but it filled me with awe, and it felt like a gift.

I was able to serve as a volunteer again last year, and was sad to learn this year that faculty would no longer be needed as ushers for convocation. But that first experience of getting to really see, just for a brief moment, every single student who walked across the college convocation stage that year has stayed with me, and I suspect it always will. There are so many students in robes on graduation day at BYU, and I know so few of them. There are so many students who pass through my classrooms, and I only get to see a small part of who they are. But each one is an individual, each one is loved by God, each one has a past and a future, and what a wonderful thing it is every time our stories converge, even for just a moment.

Amy Tanner, Mathematics Education