Penn State Intercom......May
10, 2001
Behind-the-scenes work polishes
everything for graduates' big day 
By Gary Cramer
Public Information
If, at some point during the University's upcoming commencement weekend at University Park, graduating students and their guests happen to notice how nice the campus looks -- even its dumpsters -- they should thank labor and equipment supervisor Al Matyasovsky and his Office of Physical Plant (OPP) repair crew.
Also, if the family photo taken by a table server at The Nittany Lion Inn during a congratulatory meal doesn't have a thumb in it, it's a testament to Mike Conti, associate general manager for Hospitality Services, and his staff. Plus, if the professionalism of their University diploma particularly impresses anyone, then Roberta Hardin in the Registrar's Office and Donna Von Gunden in Document Services have made new fans.
These are just a few examples of the flurry of behind-the-scenes work now being put in by hundreds of employees to prepare for commencement ceremonies at University Park on May 11-13. Taken together, the often-unheralded efforts of staff members in myriad departments are intended to make a once-in-a-lifetime experience all the more special for the main celebrants of the weekend. Call it the polishing of Penn State.
According to Lloyd Rhoades, manager of central services at OPP, it takes a task force to coordinate the many spring cleanup chores to be completed by early May. A detailed assignment list keeps OPP crews like Matyasovsky's on target for painting peeling dumpsters, patching potholes, repairing curbs, seeding bare patches and planting perennials -- all among the nearly 110 tasks on the list.
"It's always an adventure," Rhoades reports. "We've had years where we got off to a good start, then it got really rainy and delayed us. Sometimes, our landscapers have just fixed up an area, and then something happens that makes us rip it up all over again. The important thing for hitting the commencement goal is that we formalized the process so that every crew knows what the other crews are doing and nothing falls between the cracks."
Communication between the different functional areas of Hospitality Services also is a priority, as room reservations are maxed out and menus are being finalized at The Nittany Lion Inn and The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. Conti, who oversees the gustatory-related operations, notes that for this Friday alone, the inn has nearly 700 reservations for dinner and The Penn Stater nearly 350, not including various banquets. Then on Saturday, close to 2,500 people at the inn and 1,000 at The Penn Stater will partake in what amounts to a daylong buffet. Serving so many patrons calls for the use of "elegant comfort foods" that appeal to a broad range of tastes.
"One of the key elements for us to recognize as hospitality specialists is that commencement is really an important, highly emotional event for graduates and their families," Conti adds. "The thing I remember from these weekends is that at the end of the day I'm drained physically, but also emotionally because I see how sad people are about leaving Penn State and it tugs at the heartstrings. If we can be a little piece of the experience for these people, that makes it special."
For the wait staff, helping diners have a memorable time often means capturing Kodak moments for them with a bewildering variety of cameras. In preparation for the challenge, Conti makes sure they get a training session on good picture-taking techniques. He also helps parties find quieter settings to eat in when the fame of someone else in the group threatens to take the spotlight off the actual graduate being feted -- for instance when Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson attended his daughter's ceremony here last year.
Long after graduates forget what they ate and what was flowering the day they picked up their diploma, the diploma itself will remind them of the event. Making it look perfect is a tag-team effort. Hardin, graduation coordinator for the Registrar's Office, combs through vast electronic files collecting the names, degrees and honors information on students who are expected to graduate and sends it to Von Gunden, group leader for the composition department in Document Services. Von Gunden oversees the printing process, then sends the diplomas back to the Registrar's Office for final visual inspection.
This semester, about 8,500 diplomas are needed, and while much of the work is already done, late-breaking changes could keep staff devoting time to it throughout this week. Of special concern is making sure graduates' names are not only spelled correctly, but look right in the unique "Diploma" font designed by Jim Lukens-Gable, art editor for Document Services.
"I'm checking them all the time, because with the font we use, some letters don't look right next to each other," Von Gunden says. "Plus, the names with 'Mc' or 'Mac' or 'del' in them get special treatment, and names with accents or initials without periods can be tricky. We will re-do them if a graduate is unhappy, and hardly a week goes by without someone from a past class calling to get a new copy of their diploma because of loss or damage."
Speaking of damage, the greatest challenge to meeting the deadline for diploma delivery on Von Gunden's watch was mechanical in nature, rather than managerial. As she explains, the ink on the diplomas used to be a thicker, raised or textured variety than that used now, and required a layer of fixer to bind it to the paper. One year, too much fixer was applied to allow proper printing, forcing Document Services crews to scrape the residue from each diploma with a razor blade before it would go through the press.
Other behind-the-scenes workers are even now cleaning and decorating the various commencement venues; arranging special parking opportunities for visitors with disabilities; preparing housing and food services for graduating students remaining on campus between finals and commencement, and for some of their family members who will spend a night in a residence hall; and doing much more to send graduates into the world beyond Happy Valley with happy memories.
Gary Cramer can be reached at gwc104@psu.edu.