For many of the schools, they take care of gathering the information and gathering photos and then sending them to me. Usually these schools have 1-10 students. For the four regular Madison high schools, I go out to each of them 3-4 times for a couple of hours each and work with the multicultural services coordinators and guidance counselors to have the students come to a room, complete the form and then I take their photo.

Now in reading the forms, I have to do a lot of research to get an understanding of the clubs and activities they have been involved in and figure out what the acronyms stand for, especially because there are acronyms that I have never seen before.

You have to stay focused, especially to get the names spelled correctly. 30 years ago, when I started doing this kind of feature for the late Betty Franklin-Hammonds and The Madison Times, most of the students had rather common names like William, Jane and John. Now those “common” names are in the distinct minority. I don’t think I even had a Steve or a James this year. Many of the names reflect the cultural background of the students. But there are also derivatives where the name John can be spelled 3-4 different ways. And Aliyah can also be spelled many different ways. And then there are names — I suspect — were created to sound African, although I have never seen those names in the African community.

To me, the explosion of the spelling of different names reflects a desire for individual identity or as an expression of culture and as a way to stand out in this often standardized world of ours. And I painstakingly try to get the names right. How can you honor a student when you can’t even get their name straight?

Another thing that I have noticed is how the college majors of students have changed. Again back 30 years ago, most majors were in areas like sociology, political science, social work and the like. Occasionally you would get a STEM major.

But I have noticed a change this year to which student interests have been evolving. I would venture that close to half of the student college majors are in STEM. I can’t count how many biology majors there are and a bunch of students are going into some area in engineering. In some ways, out students are more technologically savvy with many going into a computer science field.

And the interest in gaming is influencing the majors that many students will be studying. There is a lot of interest in coding and some facets of social media that were unheard of 10 years ago. Gaming was something that I thought students used to relax. Now it’s an industry that students aspire to make a career in.

And of course, there is the technology itself. When I went to high school 55 years ago, we had calculators and that was it. Now, it seems that every student has a cell phone and a lap top and they seem to pay attention to them regardless of what is going on around them.

Back in the day when I climbed Bascom Hill on a daily basis, when you saw someone walking by themselves and talking, you thought they may be experiencing some mental health issues. Now I look for the cell phone or the phone receiver in their ear. And I would dare to say that approaching a majority are now walking by themselves, speaking to person unknown through a devices that is now apparent.

This class of graduates on the high school and college levels are wired to succeed in life and have all of the technological benefits that this society has to offer. I just hope that they remember to engage people one-on-one in person because there is nothing like the real thing baby.

We start putting this 44-page graduation issue together at the beginning of April when we can pretty definitively tell who will graduate with a 3.0 GPA or greater. I send out a form and a request for help in getting this issue started. There are a lot of moving parts and people involved. And by the grace of God, it gets completed, published and distributed each year. I am always so grateful — and relieved.

Our Urban Treasure, Ezi Adesi, said that no one gets to where they are going by themselves. And that is certainly true of this paper. There are principals, minority service coordinators, guidance counselors members of the Divine Nine fraternities and sororities, the Madison Metropolitan Links and Women and Focus, the UW PEOPLE Program, college staff and high school administrators who make this expression of the academic excellence of students of color possible. In some ways. I am just the conduit for their efforts.

I wish all of our graduates much success in the future. Make Us Proud!