With graduation fast approaching, many seniors at UW-Madison are getting excited about commencement, a ceremony recognizing their hard work and academic achievements over the past four years.
While the commencement ceremony did return to in-person last spring, this year’s ceremony will still stand out as our dear Chancellor’s last one. Becky Blank will be giving her last speech to UW-Madison students. Many details about the ceremony, such as the keynote speaker, are already known.
However, The Misnomer obtained a leaked email chain between many administrators regarding commencement. One email contained a copy of the ceremony program. At first glance, the program looks fairly normal; it lists all the graduates, honorary degrees, and other general information. The schedule is where it gets interesting. It's nearly identical to previous years, but at the end after the closing remarks by Blank, there is a section called “Becky’s Special.” Unfortunately, no additional explanation was provided.
As professional journalists, we scoured the email chain using the ever so handy technique of Control+F with the keyword: “nudity.” After our diligent journalistic work, we finally found a collection of emails talking about it. When Provost Scholz asked if Chancellor Blank was going to do anything special for her last commencement. Blank replied: “I can assure you that I will do something very special ;)”. Scholz and Blank exchanged a few more emails with Scholz asking what Blank meant, but Blank refused to elaborate until she broke and sent the following message:
“Fine, if you must know, I plan on lifting my gown and showing the graduating class what they’ve waited four years to see.”
More emails were exchanged between the two with Scholz begging Blank to not follow through and Blank arguing that Scholz was trying to restrict her and denying students what they wanted.
Unfortunately we’ll just have to wait until May 14 to see if Becky Blank follows through with showing off her Madison Milkers.