Ed Tan Reports on a Recent Visit to Yale
July 1, 2019 in Notes
ED TAN (SY) REPORTS ON A RECENT VISIT TO YALE:
“If anyone has the opportunity to attend one of Yale’s current versions of Pomp and Circumstance Graduation ceremonies, I would highly recommend it. I recently had such an occasion when my daughter’s sister-in-law, Nadia Rahman (YC’2019), graduated in May during Yale’s 318th Commencement. While graduating students still wear the traditional caps and gowns and parade through campus following their residential college medieval flags and emblems, the caps are now adorned with elaborate artistic impressions designed by students as a means of self-expression or self-identity. They range from wearing caps with protruding animal horns, flowers, cartoon characters, or in the case of graduate students from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, caps with trees, energy producing windmills and “green” buildings. In our day, the Class Day Speaker was industrialist Henry Ford II. In May of 2019 it was Chimamanda Adichie from Nigeria of Ibo origin, a novelist and non-fiction writer and advocate of women’s education, social justice and gender equality (https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/444938-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-becomes-first-african-to-deliver-yale). While the core traditions may not have changed, the tone, demeanor and message of the day have. Perhaps that’s the mark of a great university—timeless in it’s pursuit of education while addressing themes that remain forever current.”
Pics attached: (3) From L to R-Deandra Tan ’13, Asif Rahman ’13, Deena Rahman ’14, Annie Rahman, Nadia Rahman ’19, Muhit, Ed in the TD courtyard. May 2019. (4) From L to R-Ed, Muhit Rahman ’79, Annie Rahman ’80, while watching the May 2019 graduation procession on Elm Street from the ramparts of Battell Chapel.
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