The University is holding its midyear completion celebration Saturday to recognize students who have completed their degree requirements this semester.
The ceremony, organized by the Office of the Dean of the College, will be held in Salomon 101 at 4 p.m. and will be followed by a reception in Sayles Hall.
The group of students being celebrated on Saturday is "pretty mixed," said Besenia Rodriguez '00, associate dean of the College. Many of the students took a semester off between transferring from another school and coming to Brown, and several others took personal leaves of absence.
"The midyear completers tend to have taken really interesting life paths and made interesting choices," Rodriguez said. "In deciding to either finish earlier or later than the people they came in with — sort of off the standard track — I think that they tend to be a group of students that have done really creative and innovative things with their Brown education, both at Brown and outside of Brown."
Approximately 140 students are completing their requirements this semester, although Rodriguez said only about 90 are likely to attend Saturday's event, since some spend their last semesters off campus and others may simply choose not to come. Many students' families do attend, bringing the size of the crowd to between 400 and 500 people, Rodriguez added.
Although midyear completers were allowed to walk in last May's commencement, they will officially graduate in May 2011 and can also walk in the 2011 commencement, Rodriguez said.
The ceremony will include faculty remarks from President Ruth Simmons and Associate Professor of History Robert Self as well as student speeches from Aliza Kreisman '10.5 and Allison Pincus '10.5.
"I am definitely sad to leave the Brown community, and at the same time, I feel that Brown has prepared me really well for any number of things that I could do next," said Pincus, who concentrated in urban studies. Pincus took a semester off after transferring from the University of Michigan and started at Brown in January 2009.
Since she is also interested in education, Pincus said she is looking at jobs in Boston and New York schools and will start working in September. She said she hopes to travel to South Africa for six weeks before then and also plans to attend Commencement in May, though she does not plan to walk in the spring ceremony since she walked this year.
Jason Harris '10.5, a midyear completer who double concentrated in urban studies and international relations, said staying on an extra semester has made the realization of leaving "a little bit more drawn out."
"This semester has sort of been a different semester just feelings-wise because a lot of my friends graduated in the spring," Harris said. "I sort of went through some of the mental transition in the spring already."
Harris took a semester off in the fall of 2008 to do community development in Nicaragua and immerse himself in the culture there, which he decided to do instead of a traditional study abroad program. This spring, he will start a teaching fellowship at the Island School, an American secondary school in the Bahamas.
"I still feel at this point that I want to work in urban education, but I am not sure if I want to teach yet, so this is an opportunity to learn a little bit more about teaching and work with students without being fully in charge of a class and before I commit to teaching in the long term," Harris said.
Saturday's event does not involve caps and gowns, since the Corporation only allows one official commencement ceremony annually. But midyear completers, unlike most students at May's Commencement, will be called up individually to the stage to shake Simmons' hand and receive a letter personally signed by her, Rodriguez said.
The Dean of the College has held the midyear completion celebration annually since 1989, according to the office's website. The ceremony for midyear completers is a way to "take note of their achievements and their accomplishments as a distinct group," Rodriguez said.
Pincus added that she finds it "really amazing" that Brown honors its midyear completers.
"In other places, graduating late or graduating at an unconventional time — they don't celebrate it in the same way that they celebrate it here," Pincus said.
