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Institutions demonstrate their value and encouragement of students and encourage students when they "underscore the importance of student life through symbolic action." (Kuh et al., 1991, p. 360). Such symbolic actions include the culminating ceremonies, or commencement, that occurs to some extent at the end of each academic term. In addition to institution commencement ceremonies, students at many colleges and universities acknowledge both their academic achievements and their cultural heritages at specialized celebrations usually based on specific ethnic identities (Weiss, 1998). Many of these events are student-initiated and occur during the university-wide commencement weekend in the spring. They are "designed to provide a sense of community for minority students who, they say, often reel from culture shock" at their impersonalized institutions" (Weiss, 1998, p. Al). For many students these specialized events are the reward for staying in school despite isolation, marginalization, and struggle.
Institutions should "generate feelings of loyalty and a sense of specialness" (Kuh et al., 1991, p. 363) to encourage student involvement. Kuh et al. (p. 196) noted that celebrations are "ways to make students feel at home." They tend to increase cultural awareness, and "maintain a high quality of student life in what might otherwise be a fragmented and anonymous environment" (p. 213-214).
Ceremonies and Celebrations
Kuh et al. (1991, p. 212) stated that ceremonies "integrate the academic with the nonacademic in ways that celebrate the total experience of students. Chickering and Reisser (1993) agreed, noting that ceremonies acknowledge accomplishments and celebrate relationships. In fact, Chickering and Reisser passionately described culminating ceremonies as those times when faculty and staff come together collaboratively to "refocus on the individual student, who is more precious than any publication, more complex than any curriculum, and more worthy of our attention than an committee work" (p. 453).
Students matter. Mattering, according to Wolf-Wendel and Ruel (1999, p. 44), "suggests that students must feel appreciated for who they are and what they do." When students are involved and when they feel cared for, they tend to have higher retention rates and develop institutional loyalty (Wolf-Wendel & Ruel, 1999). Ortiz (1999, p. 47), too, noted that a key to retention, achievement, and "institutional persistence and livelihood" was deeply integrated with students' ability to identify with their institutions. Alumni who...