March Makes Me Think Of Graduation

The privet bushes in my backyard are putting on bunches of tiny new leaves, that means it is March in Central Alabama. It was during March in 1970 that I finally graduated from Auburn University. I had started to Alex City State Junior College in the fall of 1965 and transferred to Auburn in September of 1967 so I should have graduated in 1969, but I had to repeat several courses during my time on the plains.

I love Auburn. It is a great school and I would not take anything for having gone there, however I can’t say that I have a storehouse full of fond memories of my Auburn education. It was tough. My grades were marginal. Thanks to the Vietnam War and my local draft board, each quarter I was taking at least one more course than I could successfully handle. I had done fairly well at ACSJC and had a transfer grade point of about 1.67 on a 3 point system but I was always on the raw edge at Auburn. So much so that when I went to the Registrar’s office in early 1970 to apply for graduation, my Auburn grade point was a 0.98. At that time, the minimum grade point for graduation at Auburn was 1.00. My overall grade point, including my transfer work was comfortably over 1.00. Unfortunately, transfer grade points were assigned the value of 1.00 until after graduation.

At the Registrar’s office I talked to a very nice lady whose name has long ago left me. She looked at my folder, she looked at me, she looked back at my folder, and finally she said you know that you have to have a 1.00 to graduate. I said yes. You have a 0.98. I said yes, I guess that means I can’t graduate. She said not necessarily. You have a 1.67 transfer grade point. I said yes. So when the two are combined you have a (don’t remember the number, something like 1.24 I think). I said yes, so does that mean I will graduate. She said not necessarily. Your transfer work is only counted at 1.00 until after you graduate. I said I know, does that mean I won’t graduate. She said not necessarily. Based on your current grades you will probably have a 0.99 grade point at the end of the quarter. So does that mean I won’t graduate. She said not necessarily. By now I was frustrated. I looked at her and said, am I gonna graduate or not. She said, I think so.

I went on to pass everything that quarter and by my calculations I had a 0.99 grade point. I was standing in line in the coliseum waiting to get my diploma and wondering if I was gonna get up there and they were gonna say, wait, you have a 0.99, you can’t graduate. When the time came and they called my name and I walked over and got that diploma cover, I knew that I had made it. That was 36 years ago but when the new little clusters of leaves pop out on the privet bushes in Central Alabama, it all comes back to me just like it was yesterday.