Quentin Wheeler

May 11, 2015 - 4:11am
Award-winning poet Mary Karr and others aim to inspire more than 6,000 SU and SUNY-ESF graduates, their families and supporters on Sunday.

The excitement on the faces of graduating students and their families is pervasive, giving a colorful, vibrant buzz to the Carrier Dome this Commencement Sunday.

Doting mothers run around with coffee cups, fathers snap last-minute photos before their graduates run off to their procession, and children grin bashful smiles, anxious for the ceremony to begin. Graduates can be spotted all over campus up until 9 a.m., when they must be in their places at the Dome, huddled and bouncing with a healthy mixture of joy and nervousness.