Creative Spring Graduation Ideas
CREATIVELY AWESOME SPRING GRADUATION IDEAS
On this fast + fun webinar, Rachel talks about WHAT needs to be recognized in order for individuals to feel celebrated, the emotions we should focus on, and ideas for commencement topics/messages that will deliver the messaging that the class of 2020 needs to hear most right now! Ending with out of the box ideas around celebratory things to send grads and award winners plus a sample of the timeline to keep in contact with graduates and- keep the celebration going!
HIGHLIGHT FROM THIS WEBINAR:
The 4 questions you should ask yourself to focus your energy now
What behavior profiling tells us about the 4 areas of recognition
Discussing the study relating to poignancy and Facing Meaningful Endings
The 5 Commencement messages graduates will find power and comfort from
7+ Ideas to charge up students and get them excited to celebrate, share and turn the page to the next chapter of life
Have you thought about flashing glasses?
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS WEBINAR
Potato Parcel: The Most Unexpected Gift In The Mail
The Go-Giver by Bob Burg: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea
Thrive by Arianna Huffington: Creating a Life Of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder
+ Open Full Webinar Transcript
Sue Boxrud:
Hi everybody. It's Sue from bash. Schuler I wanted to pop on super quick before I hand things over to Rachel just to say hi and how are you and, and, and I hope that you're holding up and we all hope that you're holding up and settling into your new normal. We are, we are thrilled to be able to provide these for you. Rachel is just a wealth of knowledge for you and we'll continue to post more about other opportunities. So that hopefully, you know, we can all make it through together. We're here for you when you are ready and and want to talk, whether that's venting or programming, whatever you want to talk about, we're here for it. But I think one of the coolest things that's come out of this is to see so much collaboration, so much support of one another and so much creativity. And it's been so cool to be a part of all of that. So without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to my friend Rachel and she is going to take it away.
Rachel Sheerin:
So you rock just to confirm everybody, you know, we're so pumped that you are here. I see Christina Kern saying good to see your face. So, so, so you listen, you got fans, but Sue, Chris and Scott, the entire bachelor team, they're there to help you. So correct me if I'm wrong, some of the things that you can do to help those, it's just talking through programming ideas. How did it take things virtual how to coordinate. I see you've even got like activities and programs and DIY stuff. So Debbie key says, Hey Sue and Rachel, if folks don't know, but they want to get in touch with you, what's the best email for you?
Sue Boxrud:
You can do info@bass-schuler.com and then we will get it to the right representative otherwise. Always feel free to email me, sue@bass-schuler.com and I can get it to the right person too.
Rachel Sheerin:
Well hopefully we'll be at NACA soon. It will fly back. They started in here and thanks to huge a support to Bass Schuler for sponsoring my webinar today. You guys freaking rock. Yeah. Well welcome everyone and thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Friday with me. My name is Rachel Sheerin. I'm a professional keynote speaker and virtual educator and today we're talking all things celebrations because I know that this is going to be top of mind for you all today, today, tomorrow, next week. Pivot into talking about how we can essentially really celebrate our students and our faculty in great year. Honestly that they had a great journey that they've had. So yeah, before we get started, just to confirm make sure that if you're using the chat box, make sure that you're able to select who you're sending it to and the election should be all panelists and attendees.
Rachel Sheerin:
So this is something that's important. If you do want, share it today via chat and talk to each other and make sure that that too two with the thoughts, the Oh gosh guys, it's Friday B. I'm Colin. It makes sure that it says instead of all panelists, you change it to all panelists and attendees. So without further ado, I'm going to start sharing my screen forward and kick off today's webinar. And for those, if you haven't been on a webinar with me before, I like to just make sure you do have Sue Scott and Chris's information. Great news, the E high fives. They are offering an unlimited reason why I'm so feel free to say hello to their friendly faces. And with this webinar today, my goal is to use your time effectively to start and end on time, to give ample time for question and Amber, and to provide something that maybe a great solution for you that you did not have before, but also provide things to inspire your thoughts.
Rachel Sheerin:
That's the part of being together and especially during these chaotic times, but also really creative time. That is the beauty of right now is possibility to create something never have before. So without further ado, let's call a spade a spade. We can still party in quarantine. It is going to look a little bit different. Absolutely. But this is one of those things that really with the right mindset, the right energy, the right huge hearts that you guys have, I know that this can be something really special. So I just wanna, you know, it's Friday. Let's loosen up. I, it might sound corny among y'all, we have to start the party for our students, for our community, for our campus, and for ourselves. So look at two mind really these four questions. I want to provide these orients to you thinking about what you really want to provide for your folks and your students that are going to be effective.
Rachel Sheerin:
The one big fear I have and one possibility I think that's marinating a lot of our minds is what happens if we put all this work into something? If we put all our work into something and it does not [inaudible] it does not have a fact, and I got these questions from a great friend of mine, Peter, who helping me with my business and I thought, wow, this is so applicable for you all as well. So I wanted to share what do they need now? What do your students, regardless of what celebration or planning or or involvement in math, what do they need right now and what will they need in the future? What will they need in the future when things are back up because they always do. This is a pendulum, so they're always going to be back up. Now on the flip side of that, for you all as organizations, for you all as employees, what is going to be easier now?
Rachel Sheerin:
Then it would be later. What are the things that are easy right now? To be quite honest, social media should be blowing up right now because all of that, all of our phones, we're all hanging at home and we should be pouring out that content. What about what is harder now? Then it will be later hugging. But these extroverts all, I'm curious miss thugging but there are gonna be some things starting to range from an, you are going to get these slides after this presentation, these questions, share them with your colleagues, marinade on them, see what you all come up with. Because if you live in is going to be, there are things, whether it's in your student programming or if it's E something where people are able to, Oh no guys. Oh no I did that. It's chocolate. That's not good. Oh no.
Rachel Sheerin:
Let me go ahead and see if I can adjust it on my side. Thanks you guys for letting me know. Oh, technology. Let's see. I do know the replay is going to be available and it should be a completely clear replay. So as you are listening to this on the replay I am so sorry that we're gonna we're going to try and commit nephews please. We'll start essentially as great started going for what you should be focusing on. So the big question we have around celebrations is honestly, how can we focus on what matters most and what are most really looks for recognition and for different ways based on the four behavioral type stuff most people have. We need to be recognized for the tasks that we had completed, the technicalities, so the details of what's been done or how we've achieved, we've need to be recognized as an individual and we also need to be recognized for group and community.
Rachel Sheerin:
This is really important to understand because this is not this award season. This recognition season is graduation season. It is not going to be just a linear one step line for folks. This is going to be a three 60 approach to really celebrating folks. And these are the things that in your communications and in your awareness and conversations you're going to want to make sure I see you as an individual. I'm so glad you're part of our group. I see that you've done X and Y and Z and more than that. Your DPA, is this your feedback? Is this your pure review score? Is this, make sure that you're keeping this a real three 60 approach to the things that recognition? I think graduation as an a great example. It is not graduating. Graduating is just one thing. They have achieved a task of doing it.
Rachel Sheerin:
How they did it is the technicality side of things. What schools are graduating from, what their GPA is, if there is Summa cum laude, Monica Lau, right? Being focused on the individual. That's part of the specialness of saying their names and also being part of the group or community. So these are the things that matter most really. W one of the things that's going to spell out, I believe that biggest opportunity and the biggest success for you all is to really focus on emotions as we are celebrating this word categories as we're celebrating them, really focus on the emotion that people are wanting to feel and the things that you want your students to feel. There's an incredible, incredible study done by three Oh professors and they really talked about poignancy, which is mixed emotional experience in the face of meaningful endings. Here are some quotes that I drew out of this essential studied by these three professionals.
Rachel Sheerin:
And one of the things that they talked about was mixed emotions. It's happy and sadness. It's missing something and being excited for the next chapter, which is really what a lot of these year on ceremonies are about. But the truth of the matter is mixed emotions were participants were reminded of the any in that they were experiencing. So this is something to say, Hey, listen, we need to keep talking about the end it okay to talk about the transition. It's okay to talk about what maybe they have missed. Another interesting quote was this sense of limit causes an individual to focus on emotionally meaningful aspect of life. This is actually why the older you get, the more sentimental you get. I think about my mom and she's in her sixties now and she's starting to get more sentimental with every single passing gear. I don't know if you all sense that as well from the people you know, but the sons of limited time is important because essentially what we're talking about in urine celebrations and graduations, we are focused on the limited time that we have together and the limited time in scope of the average four year education.
Rachel Sheerin:
The people have been bonded when we talk about those limited times deepens the emotional impact. Additionally, mixed emotional experiences can aid in this is really important. The consoling and the healing [inaudible] process, many, it will help a lot of individuals and really deal with the anticipated loss. No, this is, I mean to say, you might be saying, Rachel, why are you sharing this with us? This is the power of a knowledging the happy and sad right now. This is the power of making sure that whatever celebrations you're talking about and your planning, they need to be Oh all encompassing. We cannot put on the Rose colored glasses and say, ah, rah rah, rah, rah. You know, we don't want to make them somber affairs. It is that beautiful mixture of, of Oh, being aware of the current situation and inclusive. It's actually I'm only going to be an effective celebration, but it's also going to be a very positive healing tool.
Rachel Sheerin:
Teaching dumb people how to deal with the complexity. Honestly at adults we understand life is complicated. Let's make sure that we're set up celebrations. So one thing that I think is really important for you all planning, whether it's commencement messages, keynote speaking messages, leadership messages, awards, these are the five areas that based on studies, some of which I linked previously, you're going to want to focus the messages on messages of hope. It says messages of the long future, meaning they have so much time those messages where you say you think you have so much time. [inaudible] Encouraging the opportunity there also the opportunities to speak all creativity. Very powerful right now. These are the messages that will resonate. Additionally, change is good. Change is good. I always think back to culturally, culturally, I miss it. People understand evolution as good growth is growing. Seasons are good.
Rachel Sheerin:
This is definitely a growing season for us. All. And finally, Kay Austin success. This is something that's a, I think that the scientific world does a great job of really being able to embrace a story out of chaos and embrace. There is people who have come from adversity, people who have been thrown into war torn situations or crisis situations and how they persevere through it. That is too, I would be looking to speak with and have speak to it to students, but additionally helping them coach through a lot of the chaos and success messages that yes, things are born out of chaos and oftentimes they are massively successful, greater than they could have been. And by the way, this skills that we develop as the gases around us, well, those come in handy later too. So how do we charge them off? This can look like a lot of different ways, but making sure that we're painting a picture of what should be happening and using low energy, there is a mournful opportunity with your celebrations to say we should all be together right now.
Rachel Sheerin:
We should all be together in fancy clothes with our parents and our friends. Right? But then also paint the picture of the long path opportunity and be excited about it. Be charged up about it, be pumped that they're about to close the chapter. We are about to move on to a new chapter of life of society, of their life and let's face it, young people, if kids are so incredibly resilient, they're going to bounce back. Generation Z is the future. They're going to bounce back really easy, a lot easier than us. Now what about other men? Things are charging them up. Personal messages or names, by the way, making any kind of award ceremony like ignition or graduation replay available will be very beneficial. Be very beneficial. Brian, make sure that we are including and keeping their legacy. Say their names. Being able to share it, that kind of stuff is important.
Rachel Sheerin:
What about music and videos there? Are we on up using these to celebrate, to hype them up? I always think about an incredible video that I'm working with Chick-Filet doing some of their training. One of the things that I showed or was shown is a video that they show their employees. Now whether or not you support Jeff play. This video was very impactful because of the music, because of the cinematography, because of the message that their message was that here you might be serving chicken, but that's not the job. The job is serving people. Those kinds of emotional impact videos, they can charge people up. They can give people a safe space. They can [inaudible] boost up nostalgia for a place they will be leaving. Some students may not see campus for a very, very long time. No. What about a phone tree? Have anyone, have anyone on your campus or team discussed personal hub apps?
Rachel Sheerin:
The phone call that says, Hey, this is Rachel. Listen, congrats. I heard were X, Y, and Z. Listen, just super huge kudos. This is my number if you want to call me back, but congratulations. You know what the truth is? Most people will, but do you know how surprisingly pleasant that would be together. It matters. What about mailers by the way? Mailers, not just to the students because the lines. So did that study about mixed emotions and heightened emotions increasing with age. What about the parents that are missing out on celebrated? What about the double shifts they've worked? What about the first a K person in your family to go to college? All of those emotions that are really wrapped up in, in parents investing in their students, why not send them a congratulations a mailer as well, but about a mailer for an anniversary, right?
Rachel Sheerin:
Happy three month anniversary alumni. You know, these things can all make a huge difference. And additionally, swag, I mean, there's always going to be fun swag, whether it is, you know, an alumni magnet or a bumper sticker, whether it's something that's more tongue in cheek, like a meme or something like that. I survived Corona graduation 20, 20 or even a collector's piece. So whether that's something where you all are minting coins or I saw recently where someone was tearing down a building and they actually sent small pieces of the building to everyone who had had a class in the building. Yes, it might seem impractical, but here's the thing. [inaudible] Here to inspire you. And additionally, these are unexpected toys. If you've ever read the incredible book, the goal giver, the go giver. This book is incredible. It starts off with a very real premise of the matter is most people do not care about the value of a gift.
Rachel Sheerin:
They care. The a gift was given. That's the thing. What are we physically getting? [inaudible] What does that look like? So charge them up in a variety of different ways. And by the way, this comes to following up and engaging. We cannot just celebrate once. That is really important. We cannot just celebrate once. I wish we could, but we cannot invest so much that's put around, for example, a graduation. There's, you know, multiple ceremonies. Everyone walks across the stage. But this is where the opportunity to create an ever being campaign to follow up with your celebrations in the future. We create it right now. This is an awesome opportunity. So, but it's full up in dating. Look like. Well, the first, the first thing I want to touch them on and speak is congrats and celebration. That means what's happening right now. So this is the point where we're talking about, congratulations.
Rachel Sheerin:
We're talking about, let's celebrate. Please join us. Whatever special events you have going on around that, that's what they thread. Then it moves into, if you're graduating, welcome to the alumni. But on a way, even if people are not graduating, if you're planning a recognition program in a different way, do you have an alumni portion of the program? And if not, could you create one? If not, what could that look like? What would the benefits be? Right? Additionally, what kind of special events, I know things are up in the air right now, but we'll, we have a special football game where all the graduates get to run the field. Is that an idea? What about happy hour mixers or a family barbecue for the 4th of July. What does that look like? What kind of special events on by the interesting, is it continuing education?
Rachel Sheerin:
Which leads into the fourth question about how you can follow up asking the question, what do we do for you? What can we help you with? Listening and actually creating programming around that for or continuation. So that really could look like having job and career coaches. I do a webinars, a training right now for graduating seniors, and it talks about rocking the interview in your resume, right? What are we providing so that they can actually, you know, not just thrive in the moment. Right? Goes back to those initial questions. What do your students need right now? What do they need in the future? Right now they need a rock and resume because you know the world that they're about to graduate into, they're gonna be competing with people who have a lot more experience. There's space for everybody, but we're going to need to help them sharpen the sword, get ready to fight a battle in the real world that they have not done yet.
Rachel Sheerin:
What are we doing for them? And when they say how it can help, help me actually give out. Help them. So what is this look like? This is an example. Graduation follow up timeline that I created. So a month before it looks like videos and special appearances. I lean on a lot of my networks a lot and connections, you know, who can you have say, Hey, what's up? You know, listen, class of 20, 20 super pumps, calculations. What videos can help by where staff or by yourself. That's like, you know, wait, show me, you know, May 8th I know that's when my little brother is graduating college or whatever. But you know, how can we set these video expectations of listen, bring, you know, bring the energy better everybody together in the living room and you know, even if may technology so easy, even grandma can participate that kind of stuff weeks before the countdown on hype up the day of, of course, huge celebration.
Rachel Sheerin:
And by the way, some things that maybe will help you celebrate. I mean, why not set out some swag? Okay, listen, I love these things. All right? Whether it's something like this, whether it's creating a unique invite, this one just says, let's dance, right? This is the opportunity to get away from being so academic and serious. Is it still academic? Serious? Yes. Do people need this kind of joy right now? I think so. You could even go doing something with this is I think it send a potato.com congrats. 2020. That's right. It's just a potato that has magic marker on it, but I do not, this is extremely popular. This is a wild business model. What about two weeks before the height that the day of the week after. What can we send them? This is one of my favorite books for new graduates. You can tell by the edges.
Rachel Sheerin:
I read this and share this one a lot. This is thrive by Arianna Huffington. There's this catalyst the third metric to refine, redefining success and creating a life full of wellbeing, wisdom and wonder. This book is an incredible gift of a book. Is there a book that you can give bore leadership recipients, your graduates who are award recognitions? Is there somebody who's an alumni or is there a book that can be donated? These are the creative opportunities for you to be following up and while doing that, the follow up timeline can continue. What about a one week after with great recap video? We're talking major music, major ocean, like I work in Hollywood here. That is a great opportunity. Oh, one month anniversary, three months, six months, a year anniversary. Remind them of that recap video. These are the kinds of things that you can do automatically via email that you create a template for.
Rachel Sheerin:
Even even in December when we're all going to be together celebrating these things, hopefully in person. These are things that are real followups because at the end of the day, what is going to spell out the most success for your students and your campuses is the message, the overarching message of ICU. And I love you, I see you and I love it. You're part of the family and you are an incredible superstar. You have done it and you have done it well. These messages. Yeah, if we can provide them consistency consistently, it's just like a movie. How you start and how you finish matters the most. Giving people the emotions that they desire and need to feel like they are a graduate and a proud alumni, a leadership award recipient and athletic award and whatever special rec recognition they get. The emotion behind it has to be heightened and it's got to be consistent and it's got to come from a variety of sources.
Rachel Sheerin:
So I'll open it up to questions. This is my phone number. This is my email. You certainly can call me. Email me with the questions when it does come to questions you have, I'm going to open up the chat. You also can put questions into the Q and a box. Let's take eh, look and see what we have. Oh, I love Jacqueline says send pack of scenes for get us two graduates from alumni or chancellor office seeds. Oh, I love that. Very, very cool. Let's SI the name of this book, Katherine to work. The name of the book that I held up is called thrive by Arianna Huffington. And the book that I mentioned before about gifting is actually called the Go-Giver. And so that's G O hackathon giver, giv, E R. And I see where, Oh, it looks like it had them both having some issue with the audio.
Rachel Sheerin:
I apologize. You are so welcome Catherine. If it's good with you all, I'll make sure to send out the reported a clear version of this to you all. So feel free to look through the slides. You'll be getting links. I see my team member Rachel, she is awesome. She is mentioning we'll be putting links to these books and resources on the followup blog posts that'll arrive in your email shortly. So listen you all, this is unprecedented times, but the greatness is truly, you are unprecedented people, student life folks. You guys have the biggest hearts. If there's anything that I can do, if you want to actually talk about speech writing for your presidents, chancellors, deans, to make sure that they're giving that emotion. I am here. I do see writing since I am a professional speaker. So you feel I'm an open book. Happy to help you look over anything. Rollin it together. Kim, I see a raise in a hand over there. Let me know. Thank you for being here. You have a great one. It is officially Friday. Woo!
Questions / Comments / Margaritas? Let me know below!