The strains of Pomp and Circumstance, on a seemingly endless loop. A sea of mortarboards and long black robes. The high-pitched squeals, long whistles and low cheers of friends and family, excited to hear their graduates’ names called from the stage.
I’m not normally a very formal or sentimental person, but I love Commencement. It’s impossible for me to hear a few bars of Pomp and Circumstance without reflecting on my own graduation day. (Fun fact: I’m part of the relatively small group of grads who had Commencement on the Oval, in 2001, with Bill Cosby as speaker. My entire family managed to sit along the path from my seat to the podium, so I got to high-five my proud parents on the walk to pick up my diploma.)
As a higher ed communicator, I think Commencement is one of the best opportunities universities have for engagement: It’s a chance to inspire prospective and current students; tell grads’ stories; and give alumni a chance to reminisce about their own graduation days.
University Communications is using the week leading up to Commencement to share the stories of three fantastic soon-to-be alums: a field hockey star from Trinidad and Tobago; an Ohio native who started the first TEDx event in a prison; and a highly involved Atlanta native who was mentored through the Bell National Resource Center, which serves African-American male students. (We’ve got a long list of destinations for the story and its parts: the web, including osu.edu and Alumni Association properties; social media, where we’ll share and engage via #OSUgrad; OSU Today and Connect e-news to alumni; and our sister print pubs, onCampus and the Alumni Mag.)
The stories are fantastic–and the final product is reflective of the variety of talents we have in the Multimedia unit of Editorial Communications. With two photographers, a video producer, a social media manager and a senior writer all working on digital storytelling, we are able to produce compelling packages like this. (We also rely on teamwork from others, like the designer whose layout made this work sing on the web page.) When all these skills complement one another, we can effectively show the amazing opportunities Buckeyes have when they embrace Ohio State.
Watch one of three grad videos below–and then check out the full story.