Coveted Ticket: Taylor Swift Earns Honorary Degree at NY College

The New York Times

Both Jenny Dhoumo and Lauren Kirshenbaum discovered the information on Instagram.

Dhoumo, 24, a fourth-year student at New York University, was at a cafe doing a school project when a friend forwarded her an alert published by Rolling Stone magazine that Taylor Swift would be speaking at a university graduation ceremony on Wednesday. Friday (18), and would receive an honorary degree of fine arts.

Dhoumo, who will major in media, culture and communications after a complicated student career that involved seven years of study at three universities – she took a break from studying for a while to work and help her family – has been a Swift fan since she was a child. , in Queens; the singer’s debut album was the first CD she won. Dhoumo was worried about her prospects after graduation. And the news seemed to him auspicious.

“It felt like a weird sign, like someone was reassuring me that things were going to be okay,” Dhoumo said in a conversation on the flowery edge of Washington Square Park, the public space in Greenwich Village that also serves as a kind of playground. to the university.

“I think the fact that she was the icon of my youth, and that she’s here now that I’m an adult, it’s like her returning to my life. Not for me to relive my childhood, but maybe for me to reconnect a little bit. with my inner child.” As if she said “remember the girl you were at 11, and see where you are now, as a young woman ready to step into the world.”

Kirshenbaum, 22, studies computer science and describes herself as an “average fan” of Swift, but admires the singer’s persistence and how relevant she is to her life. “It’s crazy to think about the people I listened to when I was growing up — Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles — and realize how relevant they still are,” she said. “We kind of evolved with them.”

Conversations with half a dozen NYU graduates I met in the park demonstrate the depth of connection these people feel toward Swift.

The pop star has released 10 albums that have reached number one on the Billboard charts since 2006, and that spans almost the entire period these college kids can remember. That’s why the connection they have with the singer and her songs is often very specific.

“She feels it in a really deep way. That’s a great talent,” said Senyah Mason of Phoenix, an international relations student who was taking pictures for her graduation with roommate Isabelle Jacques, 22, of Boston, who is majoring in psychology. “If her song is playing, I hear it, but I don’t try to find it.”

Mason stopped. “But I love the ‘1989 album,’ actually. ‘Safe and Sound,’ ‘Out of the Woods,’ other songs I like.” Jacques echoed his friend’s sentiment. “She seems great, a very kind person. So it will be nice to hear her speech. But I’m not going to say she’s dying to watch it.”

Swift’s ubiquity extends to social media, an environment in which the young people I spoke to represent the first generation to be immersed in since adolescence. The singer has nearly 300 million followers on Instagram and Twitter. Even though she follows zero people, and hasn’t posted much recently, her existence on social media platforms, during these college students’ formative years, created a bond, for many of them.

“I think in my generation, especially, there are a lot of parasocial relationships that have developed around celebrities,” said Ishaan Parmar, 20, a San Francisco-area film student, with a professorial tone. “With that, people will say that Taylor Swift spoke at her graduation and they’ll feel some personal connection to her. The reality is, it’s a speech that she may or may not have written, and that she’s going to give at Yankee Stadium. But It’s cool anyway.”

According to an emailed statement from the university’s senior vice chancellor for public affairs, John Beckman, recipients of honorary doctorates are chosen in fields in which the university teaches and research – science, social science, humanities, art, law, medicine, public service. “We select honorees whose talents, accomplishments and actions can serve as an example for our graduates.” Past honorees include [a juíza da Corte Suprema] Sonia Sotomayor, Ang Lee, Bill Clinton, Aretha Franklin, Janet Yellen, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Clive Davis.

“Awarding an honorary degree is a distinction that New York University takes very seriously,” Beckman wrote. “Our selection process is extensive, and begins with an official written nomination submitted by a member of the university community, followed by a vetting process conducted by our staff, and then review and approval by the university senate and council.” Asked how specific honorees are chosen, he wrote that “the process of nominating and considering candidates is confidential.”

Swift’s choice is far from improbable. She is one of the most famous people of her generation, and Brittany Spanos, a senior journalist at Rolling Stone magazine, this year taught a course on her at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music. (Previous courses in the series have covered the careers of Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and David Bowie.) Asked if there was a connection between the course and the honor, Spanos replied that “there is no connection as far as I know; it was coincidental.”

“She really elevated the conversation about the role of women as pop stars,” said Nekesa Mumbi Moody, editorial director for The Hollywood Reporter. Moody wrote a chapter about Swift in “Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyoncé. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl,” a book she published in 2018, and her interviews with Swift for the Associated Press news agency hark back to the early days of the singer’s career. .

She pointed to Swift’s talent as a songwriter, her ability to connect with fans, and especially her dedication. “She made us rethink the way we look at songwriters’ work when they discuss their love issues,” said Moody. “And she’s had to put up with a lot of arguing about it, much of it sexist for sure.”

Although Kirshenbaum stopped listening to Swift’s music when she reached high school, she has recently returned to enjoy her work, and has found that songs empower her. “I remember when I was a teenager, all those girls’ magazines, and her being portrayed as a person who dates a lot, breaks up and writes songs about the people she broke up with,” she said. “Now we don’t see her the same way anymore. We get to see more of her complexities.”

Swift’s ability to take her music in new directions, and respond to industry challenges in different ways, also earns her respect.

Johnson Liu, 21, an enthusiastic biology student from Queens, describes himself as “not a real fan”, having traded his brief pre-teen crush on the singer for an enduring attachment to heavy metal years ago. But he still expressed respect for her ability to change genres, “dive in and try new ideas and approaches”, and referred to this quality as “pretty radical”.

When control of her early career song catalog was sold to Scooter Braun, Swift was furious. She decided to go against the system and is re-recording and re-releasing her first six albums, which will allow her to retain the rights to the new versions, and to re-read her compositions. Her fans rushed to buy the new versions. Even people who express skepticism of Swift’s music, like Parmar, describe this tactic as “a dominant move.”

In addition, all the college students interviewed for this article believe that having Swift speak at her graduation will give prestige to the school and the graduating class, and will inject some joy into an academic journey convulsed by the pandemic. Her presence feels like a gift, especially since so many people they know, and even people they don’t know, have reached out to them to try to figure out how to participate in the event.

“People are fighting like crazy for those tickets,” Parmar said. Dhoumo said he had heard that there are people reselling tickets, “even though it is prohibited.” “Not that I ever thought of it,” she said, “but I figured, man, these tickets are worth a lot of money. They’re like the golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.”

“I got messages from friends saying they were jealous, asking if I was selling tickets,” Mason said. “And I said of course not: I’m graduating from university and I want my mother there.”

Students receive only two tickets each, and the university is trying to enforce the situation to maintain the sales ban, and has even threatened students who violate the rules to withhold their degrees. The charity also warned the public that Swift’s speech is traditionally a five- to 10-minute speech, and that she will speak on behalf of all honorees. (Susan Hockfield, dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Felix Mátos Rodriguez, chancellor of the City University of New York, will also receive honorary doctorates.)

“People need to be aware that Swift, who we are very proud to have as one of our honorary recipients this year, will be giving a speech, not a show,” Beckman wrote. “Of course, her fans are very enthusiastic, so I’m not sure that letting them know will be enough to reduce their ardor.”