60 Years of Commencements

60 Years of Commencements

By Robert Scott Dupree, Ph.D., BA ’62

On May 29, 1960, commencement exercises were held for the first graduating class of the University of Dallas. As a member of the third entering class, I had the good fortune of being in courses with some of that pioneering group. By mid-1960, I had encountered not only the founding president, but all three of his successors-to-come as well. At the end of my sophomore year, I had witnessed many key elements of our institution’s future.

Although it boasted a 1,000-acre campus, the university was quite compact. Apart from the Lynch Auditorium (then called the “lecture hall”), most activities were in the “main building” (that is, Carpenter Hall): administrative matters, science labs, academic departments, library research, student gatherings, courses — all had to fit somewhere within its two stories and corridors or, if not the lecture hall, outdoors. At first, there were a men’s and a women’s dormitory, a chapel, and a cafeteria, the last two with identical, compact floor plans. It was an intimate experience in a vast, empty space, where students sometimes partied in the woods.

Because there was not enough room in the lecture hall, the front of the “main building” was the background for the ceremony; a platform was erected outside, past which faculty and 31 graduates processed to their assigned places after administrative officers and guests of honor were seated on it. An outdoor sound system assured audibility as speakers faced south, looking over the empty landscape beyond stretching to Highway 183. Folding chairs were arranged on the lawn before the platform for the audience. I should add that none of the present-day parking lots were to be seen at that time. The campus was truly an island in an otherwise empty region just beyond the Elm fork of the Trinity River. Access to parts of the campus still involved driving over some unpaved paths.

Donald Cowan was the University's third president, serving 1962-77.

The honorary degree was bestowed on General Douglas MacArthur, who was not able to attend for reasons of health. The invited speaker was the well-known Cardinal Spellman of New York. It is interesting to reflect on the prestige of these two men and their willingness to be honored in this fashion by an obscure college just getting started on the outskirts of the city whose name it bore.

I should add that the founding president, Dr. Kenneth Brasted, was not part of the ceremony; he had been succeeded by his vice president, Dr. Michael Duzy, who served as interim president that year. Duzy’s successor, Robert Morris, the university’s third administrative head, also attended the inaugural event. He, in turn, was to be replaced the day after my graduation in 1962 by Dr. Donald Cowan. Despite this seeming instability of leadership during its first six years, UD had already seen the birth of many of its traditions. Although some graduations have been held indoors (such as mine two years later at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium downtown), the majority of commencements have been staged outside, particularly after the installation of the Braniff Mall in the later 1960s.

The 1960 yearbook was dedicated to “The Pioneers,” the members of the first graduating class who entered as freshmen in 1956.

Editor’s Note: This year marks the 60th anniversary of this first Commencement ceremony as well as the first year since then that UD has not held a Commencement ceremony in May — due, of course, to the COVID-19 pandemic.