Members of the Class of 2004 may graduate amidst a million uninvited winged guests. According to a United States Department of Agriculture press release, “billions of large, noisy, winged, red-eyed insects,” 17-year cicadas, will fill the skies in mid-May, mating and dying out in mid-June, potentially “occupying large swaths of the eastern United States.” The bugs have many who are planning outdoor events worried. Wedding planners are taking special precautions with outdoor ceremonies in May and June, erecting tents to shield the crowd. If wedding planners are taking the cicada threat seriously, so should Georgetown administrators.
Associate Dean of the College Anne Sullivan has no memory of the cicadas disrupting graduation in 1987, so she hopes that means that they were a non-issue then. “I am so anxious to hold our Commencement outside in good weather that I am happy to plan to just crunch them underfoot if need be,”she said.
Lovingly dubbed “the Big Brood” by USDA entomologists, these cicadas won’t sting, but they do promise to fill the air with shrill mating calls and litter the ground with molted husks. With as many as 1.5 million cicadas emerging per acre, these beady-eyed insects could be just the thing to compel the scantily-clad sunbathers on Copley Lawn to seek shelter and clothing. Georgetown students should be aware of the impending arrival of millions of these 1 1/2-inch pests, which promise to bump into passerbys and cling to joggers.
Area businesses are planning special events to commemorate the arrival of the bugs, or maybe just distract their patrons. If the parents of a graduate stay at the The Ritz Carlton in Georgetown, the staff will leave a cicada-shaped chocolate on the pillows, while also peddling “cicada cocktails” at the hotel bar.
The University, fortunately, is taking the threat seriously. According to Julie Green Bataille, “the Ceremonies Committee is aware of this possibility, and are planning for it in the same way they would plan for inclement weather.” On graduation day, each individual Dean’s office, after consulting with the committee, will decide whether to hold the ceremonies on Healy lawn or in the designated “rain” site.
The administration should be lauded for these steps and continue taking them to ensure these flying pests will not disrupt graduation-week activities.
“My own children (boys) were very young 17 years ago, and they were positively delighted with the cicadas.? I hope ourgraduates and their families will be similarly inclined-willing to take nature’s phenomena in stride-small insect friends on Healy Lawn among us,” Sullivan said. Hopefully parents and students alike will share Sullivan’s optimism.
