For more than 6,000 college students, years of classroom lectures, life lessons and newfound friendships culminated Sunday at Syracuse University's 159th Commecement.

The annual ceremony brought thousand of family members and friends to the Carrier Dome to cheer on students from SU, the school's College of Law and SUNY's College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

I noticed the first sign when I peered out my bedroom window and spotted a rainbow bounce house already shaking and swaying two backyards over. The second sign arrived as my roommate thrust a freshly opened beer into my hand. Next came the beats thumping from nearby speakers, the squeals and yips floating through my open windows as someone started their inaugural game of flip cup and a text from a friend asking what time we would start putting glitter on our faces.

“Happy senior year Mayfest,” my roommate grinned wickedly.

In 1989, Spike Lee’s epochal Do the Right Thing, a manic meditation on race and morality on the hottest day of the year in Lee’s native Brooklyn, was heralded as a film that was wildly in sync with its times. According to Roger Ebert, one of the film’s earliest champions, Do the Right Thing was one of the most earnest reflections of modern race relations to hit theaters in years. The film felt fiercely modern.

But Tuesday night, while addressing a packed house in Goldstein auditorium, Lee referred to himself as an old man—“all fuddy duddy.”

In light of recent events and legislation concerning the issue of gun control in the United States, campus and Syracuse community members came together last week to voice their opinions on the subject.

“It is my duty to protect my child,” said a mother in the audience, holding back tears. “If someone broke into my house and I used more than seven bullets to stop him, does it make me a criminal?”