YOU’D THINK WE'D LEARN…DLA Labs Researchers Go on Sabbatical
In which DrivingLikeAss tries to explain its absence of posts for the past six weeks.
The DrivingLikeAss Research Labs were decimated by the annual frenzy which is Boston area graduations. Beginning in early May, more than 3,900 Boston-area colleges commence to pass out degrees to more than 4.8 million graduating seniors and grad students. The papers are filled daily with pictures of jubilant graduates and their financially eviscerated (yet equally jubilant) parents, plus long lists of honorary doctorates doled out for accomplishments real and imagined.
This annual migratory event puts a welcomed, yet intense, stress on the Boston-area economy: restaurant reservations become as scarce as Boston street name signs and hotel room rates make stratospheric leaps (we heard of rack rates over $800 at Marriott in Kendall Square. A Marriott, by god!) And the month-long binge of parties, reunions, parental celebrations, and “c’mon, one last night” at the Kells or Grafton Street or Vox creates an irresistible supplementary income source for our committed (and, so they claim, underpaid) researchers who, in something akin to a job action, take a collective sabbatical to bus tables, park cars, pour drinks, pass crudités, and otherwise take advantage of the above-mentioned jubilant parents’ largesse.
Like all things collegiate in Boston, there is an ongoing struggle amongst those 3,900 schools see who can get their roll on when it comes to commencement speakers and honorary degrees. Big name schools scoop up the big name Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer authors, and other A-List celebrities for their honorary degree recipients, leaving the rest of the pack to honor local aldermen, weekend newscasters, daytime soap stars, retiring librarians, and influential disk jockeys. Harvard has managed to go all out by holding a “Harvard Day” ceremony which they fill with student addresses (sparing the parents even more speeches at the official commencement) and allowing Harvard to further trump other schools by adding more big names to their agenda: Ben Bernanke addressed the Harvard Day crowd this year, but couldn’t touch the 2004 address from Ali G (“Bigupyaself, MIT!”)
And so, as in most areas of life, Boston’s centers of higher education prove that there is no such thing as a great social leveler when it comes to honorary degrees and their resultant buzz factor. Endowment talks.
Below is a sampling of Boston-areas colleges and their 2008 honorary degree recipients.
JWD
in Harvard, Boston, Commencement, Graduation, Honorary Degree
|
Post a Comment
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments