First of all, let me congratulate my fellow peers who will be attending Convocation 2015 this year, and a pat on the shoulder for you, who had worked so hard for this day!

Some of us have noticed that this year, our convocation will not held with the rest of HSS due to the large cohort. While we can accept this arrangement, we were shocked to see that the Division of Chinese did not have a candidate for Valedictorian, and we were informed that the Valedictorian will be from ADM. Personally, I think that this is unfair, because even if we are in a separate ceremony, we should also have a candidate too. Also, I think that the school is very insensitive about this arrangement, because this arrangement may send a wrong signal to the other students, such as we are not capable of doing the task of delivering a speech eloquently in English. This arrangement also made many of us feel that HSS is not treating us as equals with the other divisions. As we all know, people have been stereotyping us Chinese majors, as this action by the HSS office seems to build on it.

In an email reply from the office, they stated these points:

1. They have no intention of separating us DOC from the HSS family;

2. They admitted the mistake in the sentence"one of the five Divisions of HSS"

3. In ceremonies with one than one school, the valedictorian will come from one of the Schools represented in that particular ceremony;

4. This year, the valedictorian was allocated to ADM.

Keeping these points in mind, we would like to bring up our disappointment about this arrangement, as such arrangement would mean that one school will not be represented in any situation, hence we would like to petition for a candidate to be picked from each COURSE, no matter how many schools are involved in the ceremonies, so as to give each school and course a chance. Also, no matter which course's representative gets chosen in the end, it is still a gesture that all Schools should do, to show that they give each and every course recognition for their hard work in the four years of study.

We would like to gather signatures for a petition to have a valedictorian candidate from DOC to represent us. Also, if any other courses agrees with our efforts, please help us by signing this petition too. We would like this to be the last time any Courses are deprived of a chance to have their own peers represent them in their convocation.