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Commencement 2005
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Photo by Kalman Zabarsky |
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Shaped by words. “Madeleine L’Engle, the author of A Wrinkle in Time, has said, ‘We think because we have words, not the other way around,’” said student speaker Cassandra Nelson (CAS’05) in her Commencement speech. “Every student in every school and college at Boston University has been exposed to an incredible number of words in the last four years. . . . The books we have read, the lectures we have heard, and the papers we have written have actually changed the way that we think. They have improved the way that we think. They have given us skills that can be applied in the workplace — in any workplace. These skills will be useful in the so-called real world that our parents and older siblings have warned us we are about to enter.” Nelson also reflected on national and local events. “When we first came to BU,” she said, “the numbers 9/11 didn’t mean anything. . . . The introduction of 9/11 into our lexicon certainly means that in many ways we think differently now than we did four years ago. We are more aware of our place as one nation among many, and we are more cautious perhaps, but still hopeful.”
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Photo by Rob Klein |
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Need a lift? Boston firefighters from Local 718 showed their appreciation to Dana Cyboski (COM’06) (right) and Kayla Franklin (COM’05) by giving them a ride on a vintage fire engine on Commencement day. Earlier this semester, Cyboski and Franklin, along with Sarah Smith (COM’05) and Hyun Lee (COM’06), produced a promotional video for the Boston Firefighters Burn Foundation. The seven-minute film, Get In, Get Out, Give Back, choronicled firefighters’ efforts to help kids recovering from severe burns. The video was a class assignment for Hothouse Productions, a COM undergraduate and graduate level course taught by Garland Waller, an assistant professor of film and television. Hothouse is a “student-run, client-driven production company,” Waller says, that produces short videos and public service announcements for real clients.
Cyboski says that working with severely burned children was the most difficult part of making the film, which includes interviews and shoots at the burn ward at Massachusetts General Hospital, at victims’ homes, and at firehouses around Boston. “There was a little boy named Diego at Shriners Hospital who asked me to play pool with him,” she says. “When we started playing, he said, ‘I have no hands and I’m better than you!’ Do I laugh? Do I not laugh?” During the editing process, the team struggled to select footage that was both accurate and respectful to the kids. “We had certain shots that we knew would break an audience,” Cyboski says, “but we thought they would make people turn away. It was a fine line. We tried not to cross it, but to come as close to it as possible.”
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