From a purely business perspective it was a classic case of the business (The University of Wisconsin) being completely clueless regarding the needs and desires of their customers ( parents of graduates)
Parents have one expectation at graduation. When the announcer calls their child's name they expect to see that child shaking hands and receiving their diploma. Somehow it makes spending a $100,000 on tuition, room and board and in the case of Wisconsin, beer, a little more palatable.
The folks at the University of Wisconsin had a different vision of that day...lets keep this ceremony to two hours and call the graduate's names as fast as humanly possible. Instead of thinking about their customer, their focus was on time-management.
About six years ago I was hired by the higher edcuation division of PricewaterhouseCoopers to do a video on the state of higher education. It was great project where I got to interview thought leaders at Harvard, Yale, MIT, University of Pennsylvania and Tufts University.
Of all the things discussed in that piece, it was the remarks of the president of Tufts University that have stayed with me all these years.
"Students," he said, " want to be treated as customers."
That message hasn't made its way to Madison. The complete lack of regard for their customer's needs-- the very simple act of syncronizing a child's name to the moment they receive their diploma was completely lost on the officials at the University of Wisconsin.
We didn't care what Chef Odessa Piper had to say.We didn't care about any of the speakers. We cared about our children and seeing them for 5 seconds receiving their diploma.
That was the only thing officials of the Uniersity of Wisconsin should have cared about. They failed.
The University of Wisconsin is a huge school. There are a lot of graduates. So many that there are two separate ceremonies for undergraduates.
We had the 2pm shift. For whatever reason, The University dispensed of doing things alphabetically.
Instead,as the student's make their way to the podium, they hand their name to the announcer. The way it's supposed to work is that as the announcer says the student's name, the parents, looking at the big screen used for watch sporting events, should see their child smiling, shaking hands and receiving their diploma.
Ah Best laid plans...
it didn't happen that way because the announcer didn't quite sync up with the hand shaking thing.
It was like watching Ashley Simpson trying to lipsync the wrong song.
So, as they called Noah Freed's name, he had already received his degree and was walking off the podium. His dad, who had the camera poised to snap at just the right minute--missed the Kodak moment.
Instead, a lovely young woman was shaking hands as they called Noah's name. I'm sure her parents were about as delighted as we were.
It's not good business for the people who write checks to feel robbed. As the Associated Press reported, graduation is expensive.
"From cap and gown rentals to printed announcements to jacked-up hotel prices, pomp and circumstance doesn't come cheap these days. Some schools even charge explicit graduation fees of up to $160. While the joy of the moment often means families and students happily fork over the money, graduation weekend can wallop the wallet one last time...Still, multiply one family's graduation expenses - roughly $1,100 in Stout's case - by the hundreds of thousands of students graduating from college in the coming weeks, and you've got one very big business. Call it the instant nostalgia industry, and graduation season is its Christmas."
All I really have to say about the University of Wisconin's performance yesterday is Ba Humbug.
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