Growing up in Alamance County, Elon College never meant that much to me. It always seemed like a place where snotty northerners were relegated after their lack of academic ambition had precluded them from entering finer institutions. As a towny, however, I did serve an important role in the Elon educational process. Students would look down upon townies for our perceived inferior backwoods upbringing. Fueling their burgeoning superiority complex to the point where they could eventually go back to whence they came and take over their daddy’s business or spend their trust funds.

I vividly recall once ordering a gyro at a local restaurant, pronouncing the food correctly as “yee-ro”. The too-smart-for-his-own-good Elon kid taking my order felt the need to correct me before smugly walking away.  “Sir, it is pronounced jire row”, he said with the utter confidence of an imbecile.  Well deserved was the beating that I promptly administered to him in my mind.

Over the years the school has grown. The alumni must be doing well indeed because they kicked in the funds to pay for a slew of new buildings and maintenance for well-manicured lawns. Somewhere along the line they even managed to up their quota enough to change the name to Elon University. Fancy indeed.

As time heals all wounds and distance makes the heart grow fonder, I thought perhaps my disdain for the institution was no longer founded. And upon seeing a sign on Interstate 40 proclaiming that Elon has one of the top 10 MBA programs in the state/top 20 in the nation, I brushed aside the desire to make fun of any school that spends money on roadside advertising and decided that it was time to give credit where credit is due. Elon was all growns up and it deserved my respect.

That is until I saw video of the 2009 commencement ceremony.

Rather than provide an uplifting message about social responsibility or how to put their education to best use in these trying economic times, the guest speaker instead decided to take it easy on the outgoing students. He took it back to basics and made sure that each and every kid, before receiving their degree, knew the fundamental elements of the English language. Yes, he asked them to recite their ABC’s. And just to make it more fun (or to increase accuracy in their recall) he had them sing the alphabet song.

Let me just say that when the sum total of your 4 years at a privately funded ivy-league-wannabe school hinges on remembering 26 individual letters you can bet that mommy and daddy spent their money well.  Thank goodness that they all got it right. Though I am pretty sure that kid on the forth row wasn’t singing along.  Probably was an Economics major.