Where did all the gravitas go?

Is dignity dead?

While I wear most of my obsessions on my sleeve, I harbor a lesser-known one that only a few people are privy to (my college BFF, Caroline, might actually be the sole individual who knows exactly what’s coming next). I’m not even sure if “obsession” is the right word. It’s just something that, for whatever reason, I am immensely moved by: academic commencement processions.

The procession is that moment when the opening notes of Pomp and Circumstance begin to swell, and all of the school’s professors and faculty head down the aisle in velvet academic regalia of the institutions they matriculated from. I graduated nine years ago, but I remember that procession at my own graduation like it was yesterday.