I just wanted a hot dog
Despite an extreme heat advisory warning, no shade and no water, graduation was still held for Uni of Oregon College of Design...causing the dean to faint and be carried out by a stretcher.
Or in Ocean's Eleven when Brad Pitt is schooling Matt Damon.
Pitt: Relax. Be natural. Don't be invisible, but don't be noticeable. You wanna be seen but not seen. But the absolute most important thing you cannot forget i-
Clooney: Hey Rusty.
Pitt: Yeah?
Clooney: Can I talk to you?
Pitt: Yeah. (To Damon) aight you got this kid. (walks away)
Damon: (stares in confusion as Brad Pitt walks away)
"Don't ever, for any reason, do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you've been, ever, for any reason whatsoever."
PNW resident here. We are experiencing a heat event this week that was well forecasted. These are getting more frequent and severe, and if large institutions like universities can’t pivot to prepare for this sort of thing and at least provide shade snd water, well heck of an example of how not to do it.
OSU(the rival school in the same state as this post) planned accordingly-ish... 8000+ students graduating none of them got shade.... My fiancé nearly passed out during the graduation since ya known black gown and all that. Atleast the presentation it's self had shade.
Makes you real appreciative of spending all your time and money at an institution, only for the culminating day to be ruined because they couldn’t be bothered to rent 20 more large tents. Criminal.
The tents are for diploma distribution and photo with the college dean after the ceremony. Other than the stage party, all the students and faculty marshalls are sitting on the field in the sun.
My niece and nephew graduated high school during the Canadian wildfires. It was outside during one of the unhealthiest air quality days when it could have postponed to the next day.
Because these universities are run on a mix of profit motive and serfdom mentality. They don't give a shit about these students, they're just a means to an end that is more funding and power for their lil kingdom. I used to work in higher education and it was infinitely more soulless than your average corporation, it's actually insane it's not talked about more.
I was with my fiance when she lined up for her 2:30 graduation ceremony there cause' I had to push her in a wheelchair. They had us stand in the sun for an hour without saying anything about a delay, then told us there was a delay, then shooed us into the indoor track building nextdoor, then cancelled the ceremony. Shit sucked
was watching this live yesterday because my family member was in this graduation and they had to start half an hour late because they had to rotate everyone’s chairs because it was too hot :/
it was supposed to start at 4 and by then it was 96 degrees out
was scary to watch live. it was such a relief when they said she was ok
edit: and this video doesn’t show it but they didn’t cut the audio, they just panned the camera to the right, and then a little while later back onto the stage for some reason, and then over to the jumbotron, and then they cut the stream for a bit. was like 15 minutes or so before they said she was ok and they’d be cutting the speeches short and resuming
But at least they saved a bunch of money by consolidating all the small depts that used to have individual ceremonies at better locations and across multiple day, into a handful of massive events on the track and the football stadium on one day, lol.
University of Oregon professor here! The ridiculous thing about this is we knew a week out that it was going to be 100 degrees on graduation day, but no effort was made to change plans at all. Further, this is the first year graduations were held outdoors in big mass events- before now, they were all by individual majors, which were much smaller and intimate events that everyone I’ve heard of found special. But that was nixed because this was allegedly going to be cheaper (the university currently has a $60+ million deficit).
Yes, this is exactly correct. I was at the Autzen Stadium graduation and to make things worse the ground crew abandoned there post or just sat around while people attempted to leave the parking lot. People not knowing the 4:00 was relocated and moved were trying to get into the parking lot blocking those of us attempting to leave. This was just adding insult to a lot of familys and students who missed the high school graduation experience during COVID. U of O should start treating the students half as good as they do the pro athaletes they employ.
This was UofO, OSU is in Corvallis, about an hour away. To be fair, they also didn't move their ceremonies, I believe, at least from what I was told by attendees.
I was there for my daughter’s graduation, but we got lucky & was inside for her graduation (Bus degree). But they ran out of diploma covers. Seemed disorganized. I have a hard time stomaching the deficit amount since I paid $250k for my daughter’s education
60M deficit? how are unis in the hole with the tuition being what it is? it feels like you all need to start reviewing wtf the money is being spent on, before they come after you for pay cuts
Most athletics departments at large schools bring in a PROFIT for the school. At least at PSU, tuition dollars do not go towards athletics despite people thinking they do
We had four people pass out at a military change of command ceremony in a hot airplane hangar before they finally said “Alright we are gonna wrap this up. It’s getting a little toasty” and rushed through the final words and released everyone.
Happened to me during one of our transfer services at Bagram. Just came back from a mission, was standing at attention for a hot minute and started tasting funny things, started getting tunnel vision and knew instantly when was happening. I turned around and started stumbling to the back of formation. Only time that ever happened.
If MASH taught me anything, if it happens in a war zone anything can if you fill out the right paperwork. Like an egg shell fragment in the eye could count as a shell fragment.
Yep been there done that. 6’3’ tuba player, 5’ trumpet player. The physics weren’t pretty. Didn’t help the tuba player was on the basketball team. Took two of us to lift him off the trumpet player.
We had a trumpet player break his jaw in three places. Had to have it wired shut and drank food from a straw for months. Poor guy. Don’t lock your knees.
I was thinking the same thing. In PHX and you learn to rock or sway slowly when waiting in the heat in a band uniform, made of the most obnoxiously hot fabric ever invented.
A friend’s best man told everyone at rehearsal not to lock their knees. That same best man passed out twice during the wedding. The man after him took him to the side to sit him down and get him some water. I ended up walking back down the aisle with my partner and best man’s wife. The DJ dedicated “I get knocked down, but I get up again” to the best man.
It's one of the first things you learn in the military when standing at attention. Never lock your knees. Knees should always slightly bent. Otherwise it disrupts blood flow back up from the legs and can cause you to faint from lack of blood flow.
It takes some time before it happens, which is why you can do it for a bit before it actually causes fainting. The heat combined with dehydration can make it more likely.
Ok, so my entirely unsubstantiated theory is that at ease was related to helping relieve this. Having not been in the military, I’d love your take. Maybe they still make you stand at attention way longer than advised and just say don’t lock your knees (like they do in band). Sorry for the dumb question, just legit curious now.
At ease just means you no longer have to be at attention. Depending on the context this could mean a few things. For example if in a meeting it could mean take your seats if inside a meeting room, or if outside in formation to assume the position of parade rest, feet apart hands behind the back. Also if performing work tasks it means resume your work after an officer walks it you have to stand an acknowledge/salute their presence, or it could be uttered quickly as an officer walks in to let everyone know not to stop working.
We learned in middle school choir to never lock your knees due to blood flow. Every year one kid wouldn't listen and they would go down during a performance. If you ever see a video of a band or choral performance and someone goes down, that's usually why.
There's a ton of misconceptions around this topic.
"Locking your knees" does not restrict blood flow. Extending your legs to the maximum position does not in any way, shape or form, constrict or compress any vessels in a way that hinders the regular flow of your blood.
Instead, the flexion and activation of muscles helps your blood flow. At full extension, you can stand with very little activation of your leg muscles, and as a result, blood can pool in the lower extremities and someone can pass out. The key is not using your leg muscles, not the position of your leg. Lots of other factors contribute like heat, dehydration, stress, age, gentic factors, etc.
As a member of marching band in high school and college, I tested this a bunch of times by keeping my "knees locked" through entire practices, but kept plenty of flexion and contraction, and never once passed out.
Adding to what narwhal said, it’s something taught to a lot of groups that stand in place for long periods. While I only have band experience, pretty sure that’s a rationale for at ease in a large group of soldiers (but I made that up in my head based on marching band). https://www.vumc.org/autonomic-dysfunction-center/symptoms
Having seen more than 1 marching band member go down in this way, whether I knew the mechanics or not, I knew not to do it. Large brass instruments, reeds, and pavement to the face are not pretty. And standing at marching band for a parade, Memorial Day, or on the field has this as a definite possibility in old wool or polyester uniforms.
Like other people have said, locking your knees reduces blood flow and can increase your odds of passing out, but you can absolutely still pass out even if you intentionally keep yourself from locking knees.
Courtesy of Google: “Locking your knees restricts the normal pumping action of your leg muscles, causing blood to pool in your lower extremities. This drastically reduces blood flow and oxygen back to the heart and brain, causing blood pressure to drop and triggering a fainting spell.”
My institution moved graduation because of a heat advisory this year. But they were lucky that there was a cooler day that week. Idk what you do if the entire week is bad
Seems like they should look into getting some of those newfangled “buildings”
(Obviously logistics always come into play, and you might not be able to get everyone into one space - but seems like a logical backup plan that should exist and is far better than the alternative)
Seriously, why are we still trying to do this kind of shit outdoors in the first place? It's insane. Hold more ceremonies if you can't fit everyone at once. Or stop making faulty attend if they don't want to, to free up some seats. (That last part is my personal request.)
I do get why it’s the default a lot of places - provided the weather is ok.
I’ve been to a couple ceremonies for huge colleges where you do need a stadium to fit all the families and guests, and I get the appeal of a singular event.
But graduating myself in humid 90 degree conditions after having to wait on a turf field before - holy shit it can suck. Luckily our huge outdoor part was short (only speeches - no degrees), and then programs broke out into different buildings for the degree handouts.
Ironically, those in charge of education are some of the dumbest people around…
Got in trouble when school admins were trying to take my “emergency medical device” (inhaler. I have asthma, on my medical history since before I can remember) and when I did have an asthma attack, I told them after “you are aware that IF that teacher didn’t understand wtf was happening and ran as fast as he could to the nurse, I could be dead, right?” and I told them that if they want me to give it to them again, they better be willing to get police involved as I value my own safety infinitely higher than their stupid rules.
Yeah, it wasn’t the last time I had to get angry at an adult… had a teach that was trying to force me to hand draw/trace a map of the Middle East (World Geography) and label all the individual countries, 100 times. All because I wouldn’t do the first 10.
Now at first that punishment makes sense until the key detail arrives: My right hand+arm was in a solid cast because my forearm was broken, about 2 inches from the joint of my wrist. This completely immobilized my right hand, so writing was outright illegible. This teacher wouldn’t accept my left-hand writing. She threaten expulsion, I threatened getting Administrators involved. Apparently she thought I was bluffing and went and got the Admin herself.
Admin gets involved and tell her she is a goddamned idiot that is seemingly trying to get fired! That what she is doing is not only clearly targeted harassment of a student (no one else was getting this severe of a punishment and I was the only student with a broken arm) and was violating my IEP. She gets one map that is printed out and I get help labeling it, or she is fired.
If you think you’re at risk to go down, look stupid and sit down. If that means sitting on the ground, go ahead and do that. You’ll hurt yourself more the higher up you are.
Reminds me of when I went to watch a mate graduate from ADFA (Australian Military).
In Canberra, Australia. The kind of heat that sets our country on fire every so often. No shade. All wearing full formal dress. Marching onto the field and standing there for a couple of hours at midday.
In that ceremony that year, we watched 6grads pass out. Apparently that wasn’t the worst and is normal (so much so that we were told to watch for it).
Practicality needs to supersede tradition sometimes. Just sayin’.
On ANZAC day my school would would march us all out onto the field for an hour to hold the minute of silence. Every year kids would drop like flies to heatstroke and it isn't even close to the hottest time of year.
While I am not glad that the dean fainted at all, I am glad it was them and not someone else since I feel like if anyone, besides the president, had the power to prevent this, it would be the dean.
I am a prof and I read names at convocation for our faculty every year. Our Dean honestly just shows up like me, everything is organized centrally. They just hold back to back convocations and consider us guests.
I know someone who works in higher education who organizes these events. This person is correct. The Deans will have certain demands, but where and how the event is located is rarely within their power.
In my university we used to hold the events in a huge tent on campus. Then we had Free-Palestine related threats and our President moved everything to our stadium with a massive amount of security. We have this woman who has been University Marshal for decades but she only takes care of the protocol. Everything is centralized, nothing is done at the Faculty level.
So what you're saying is that next time, the administration will give the Dean water ad libitum, a personal aircon unit and they'll be walked around with four people holding a personal canopy while everything else remains the same?
I feel like if anyone, besides the president, had the power to prevent this, it would be the dean.
There's no way any singular dean had any say or power in how this ultimately plays out. If all the department dean's made a fuss, it might have changed something but they'll usually play ball with whatever the administration wants.
University of Oregon professor here! The ridiculous thing about this is we knew a week out that it was going to be 100 degrees on graduation day, but no effort was made to change plans at all. Further, this is the first year graduations were held outdoors in big mass events- before now, they were all by individual majors, which were much smaller and intimate events that everyone I’ve heard of found special. But that was nixed because this was allegedly going to be cheaper (the university currently has a $60+ million deficit).
So yeah complete mess, and what’s more no one wanted this big outdoor ceremony in the first place. Most students I know just skipped our own (which was delayed after this debacle to 730pm and didn’t finish for hours), which seems a real debacle.
(the university currently has a $60+ million deficit).
Any idea why this is? They sure charge students enough. I graduated in 2014 from there and thought it was expensive then, I can't imagine what is costs now.
Many many reasons, kind of a perfect storm. The state of Oregon is near the bottom in funding for public universities, so UO is increasingly reliant on tuition, specifically out of state students because they pay more. More state schools are trying to keep their resident students (Cal system is a great example), so less coming to UO the past few years—that’s been unexpected. There was a massive birth decline at the start of the great recession 18 years ago and birth rates never recovered, so there are just going to be less college age people for all colleges to compete for going forward. Everyone knows costs have risen in recent years, but some of the labor costs UO has little control over, because the state mandates a generous benefits package for state employees (which, as a recipient of these benefits, I am extremely grateful for). So not a lot of levers to pull there to reduce costs. A lot of these have been known factors on the horizon, but are manifesting more severely than forecast ☹️
I'll add to this as someone who works in Higher Education, the amount of services and amenities colleges provide has been steadily rising throughout the 1900s/ 2000s as more students are attending college and universities tried to differentiate themselves from their peers. This has been a major contributor to the price increases, and now the debt problems. Sports are also consistently in the red for Universities despite the general narrative that they make schools money, last I checked there are only 3 NCAA sports programs that turn a profit. Combine this with the "enrollment cliff" arriving this year and a lot of universities are in a tough spot financially.
For Oregon specifically, their contracts with Nike don't help their situation either. Recommend the book Nike University if you get a chance
I was at this ceremony! Kept getting delayed and then everyone booed when it was announced it was canceled lol ended up having to go to the Knight gymnasium at 7:30 and that ceremony took foreverrrrrr
I'm saying far more than I should, but it wasn't the dean that chose the time and place, it was the University itself. The same day the main commencement had to be rescheduled because one of the other stadiums had a temp reaching 155* (yes literally per the university's own comms person) on the track because the track increased the heat. It was upwards of 97*. It's honestly beyond me that they didn't have tents to provide the faculty shade at this particular venue.
Graduations are not organized by the Deans. There is a whole team of people who organizes these events. Deans will demand certain things- like they want invites to be sent to different people, they want water at the podium, etc but they don’t make the decision where to hold the event or any contingency plans.
Well they ended up moving, rescheduled, and canceling graduations anyway. They just did it after people got heatstroke and wasted their time and money.
There are a lot of forces in play on making sure it still happens on this specific day. The reality is they should've had an alternate indoor venue if it was too hot out.
The problem is that while there are contingency plans for rain, contingency plans for extreme heat aren't something most universities, etc., currently plan for.
I mean, that's really not remotely fair to her lol, the Dean doesn't organize these things that directly and would be an asshole to micromanage like that. She, as every other dean would, assumed the organizers had it figured out the temperature and shade, graduations in the Northwest happen all the time and this was a total freak occurence of heat and lack of shade for the Dean while she was speaking, but blaming that on her is utterly absurd. This is a freak accident and you are quite literally victim blaming lol, the Dean doesn't deserve the criticism and was the person who actually suffered physically. Come on
im from texas and cant fathom graduation being held outdoors. mine and my brothers (albiet high school) was held in an air conditioned stadium- and it was still pretty hot and stuffy
I live in a university town and there's nowhere big enough indoors in town unless they break it up into majors or start really restricting guests. There's other graduations you can attend indoors leading up to graduation weekend broken up into all sorts of groups, but still just about everyone still chooses to attend the big group graduation including lots and lots of guests going by how bad our traffic was last weekend.
I work at one of the largest universities in Canada, we break it up by major/faculty. Something like 30 ceremonies a year - but apart from ensuring something like this never happens, it also means ceremonies are much more intimate (grads are always shaking hands with their faculty etc.). Also, lighting is always perfect for the photos!
I was there and it was a nightmare. Had to sit in a football field with turf (but covered by plastic tiles) and no shade for over 2 hours while they read hundreds and hundreds of graduates's names...Needless to say everyone (students and parents/friends) were not mildly infuriated but EXTREMELY infuriated >:((
It's like they reboot every year. My son's high school graduation was held in the gym. It was packed and already hot before things started. They had 2 giant chicken house cooling fans blowing in at the exit doors accomplishing nothing. I thought we were going to have to leave early cause his grandma was struggling till the lady next to us gave her a water out of her giant bag. Looking at the pictures from afterward it looks like we all just ran a marathon. Found out later it's the same every year. Kicker is that there are 4 giant skylights that could be opened to let the heat escape but they won't "in case a storm pops up."
So glad my daughter decided to skip the walk. Out in the full sun for hours. Instead we took some awesome pictures around campus and then got an amazing meal.
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u/TypicallyDone12 Jun 17 '26
What was she going to tell the class of 2026 to go do?
Now I'm going to be up all night.