It’s that time of year. The time when graduating seniors walk the line and walk out into the real world. It’s also a time when seniors can look to alumni, who have walked that walk and to share their experiences. It’s alumni like Kristen Miller, Kim Thomas, Donald Smith, Finley Woodard and Julie Childress whose Western reminiscences can guide seniors as they leave the Hill for good.

For many years, Jeff Younglove and Freida Eggleton have attended Western’s graduation ceremony. They have watched other parents’ sons and daughters walk down the aisle and receive their diploma. But this year is different, because they will be missing the ceremony in order to watch their own children graduate.

Commencement changes the lives of departing graduates. But the ceremony itself also changes. Many things about the ceremony have changed since Dero Downing, chairman of the College Heights Foundation, walked across the stage of Van Meter Auditorium to receive his diploma in June 1943.

When do we stop learning? I mean, do we really learn in college by paying tuition and showing up now and then? Do we get smarter by just being here? What does college stand for these days? Honestly, I’m a bit jaded having attended college for seven years now, but would like to ask you all what we are really learning? Are we learning about our lives or are we merely here taking someone else’s word for it all? As I look back I realize I have been seated in classrooms under fluorescent lights for four-fifths of my life.