GRADUATION: Help Dean Sreenivasan pronounce your name
Dear Students-who-are-about-to-graduate:
As you may know, in a task I have inherited from Dean Klatell, I will be
reading your names at the Wednesday afternoon J-school Graduation ceremony.
I will read your names as you come up to get your diplomas in front of kith
and kin (and faculty), so I would really like to get the pronunciation right
(or as right as possible).
Here’s how you can help:
You have already spelled the name phonetically in the form you filled out,
and I will be walking around for the next week with a document containing
those spellings. If you see me around, please stop me and practice your name
with me, so I can annotate the document further. Feel free to stop by my
office if you happen to be on the seventh floor.
After glancing at the list and seeing all the new-to-me first, middle and last names, I can use all the help I can get. Even some of the old-to-me names aren’t so easy.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have ensured trouble for some hapless
administrator at some unknown school many years from now by naming my twins
(now turning three) with four exotic names each. Here’s something my wife
and I wrote about that:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/144/story_14477_1.html
Good luck with your final week. For continuing students: It’s never too
early to start having me work on your names!
- Dean Sreenivasan
