Yesterday on the National Mall in front of the Capitol over 25,000 people attended the George Washington University Commencement ceremony. With over 2,500 different kind of students graduating it was quite a scene.
While the focal point was obviously the students, it was Mrs. Obama's challenge and speech that is garnering so much news attention. Earlier this year, Obama challenged the GW community to log 100,000 of DC-based community service, in return she would speak at commencement. The GW community logged over 160,000 hours, and as she said she "is a woman of her word." She spoke, at great length, about the praise she received from the recipients of the service as well as studying abroad and broadening horizons.
GWU required students to show up for Secret Service security screening at 7:30 AM. Lets just say certain students were a bit rowdy as sleep had apparently not been a priority the night before but the event went off seamlessly. By the end the chattering and moving around definitely increased as students had been there for going on 5 hours but the excitement was in the air. Even after graduating the day or two before students were still thrilled to be there and see Mrs. Obama speak.
As a proud member of the GWU Columbian College of Arts and Sciences 2010 graduating class, I can say I enjoyed commencement, especially Mrs. Obama's speech and am glad I don't ever have to do it again!
On a more personal note, if you go to the last picture of the GW Hatchet slideshow, my face is partially blocked but I am the guy in the center in black sunglasses.
