EDITOR'S NOTE: This year, students graduating from ASU Main, East and West are invited to attend one University Commencement ceremony at Wells Fargo Arena. In the past, the different campuses have had separate commencement ceremonies.
It is possible that ASU President Michael Crow's commencement unification concept bears at least some merit.
I may even concede that bringing us together for events like graduation will project an image of unity, in much the same manner that arid sand projects an image of water to dying stragglers.
However, whatever minor public relations gains are to be had at the expense of West's flagging individual identity, those gains cannot offset the immeasurable and unnecessary loss to the west campus and the West Valley community.
We may all be ASU, but we are most definitely not all the same. To assert something this implausible is like insisting that geography is not a factor in the Valley of the Sun - as stated above, plainly ridiculous.
First of all, most of us have chosen to make West our learning community not because West is the same as Tempe, but because it is so different. If we had wanted to get lost in an anonymous throng, then we'd have registered for classes there in the first place. We did not.
Instead we came to West because we wanted something different. And now, when that crucial moment of commencement arrives, that moment of final payoff for years of agonizing sacrifice to earn our degrees, we and our beleaguered families will have schlep it all the way from Peoria (or Glendale, Surprise, El Mirage, Anthem...) to Tempe, just so we can sit and stare at a bunch of strangers while never-seen-before professors in full regalia confer diplomas on us en masse like fairies conferring pixie dust on a field of colorless dandelions.
This isn't what we signed up for.
I expect to cross that stage at Sun Dome, reach toward that well-known outstretched hand and receive my diploma in the bosom of my own learning community. You can keep your nameless graduate mill - I don't want it.
Secondly, not only does unified graduation deprive the students and families of West, but it also deprives the West Valley community at large as well.
Michael Crow has repeatedly stated his goal of building ties with surrounding communities - he always speaks of West's community embeddedness.
ASU West's graduation is an important and irreplaceable cultural event for the West Valley, our chance to show that the westside is a valued partner in building a better, brighter tomorrow for Arizona.
But in December, when West Valley news reporters crank out their graduation-issue copy, every "Gammage" on the page will represent another slap in the face to those of us who live and learn west of I-17.
Third, and most important, whether this momentous decision proves to be good or bad for ASU, Michael Crow's refusal to consider the opinions of the students and faculty of West will forever taint the event. He made this decision unilaterally, setting a troubling precedent in defining West's "Changing Direction" without even the hint of deliberation.
For this reason, many West students will simply choose to forgo commencement altogether.
I call on President Crow to consider our voice, to at least briefly rethink this seemingly capricious and arbitrary decision. Listen to the will of the people whom your decisions so personally affect, and give us back our graduation.
But then again, why should I have a voice in something like that?
My degree only cost me $40,000.
Matthew Roy is a graduate student of English at the west campus.
This column was published via an agreement with the West Express, the student publication at ASU West.
