The University of Iowa is instituting a policy to bring a little class back into their graduation ceremonies.

Apparently, in past years, students at our sister school have taken liberties with the dignity and grandeur that graduation is supposed to entail.

Previous U of I graduates have attended wearing shorts (if anything) under their gowns, displaying obscene messages on their caps, or even under the influence of foreign substances.

For some, the memo to “Graduate With Class” mailed recently could not have come soon enough, as the summer session draws to a close and U of I officials hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Since we so rarely get to take this position, let us be the first to say: Lighten up!

Maybe if the school in question were Harvard or Yale we could accept that students should be buying into the whole “dignified graduation aesthetic.”

But any institution which emphasizes liberal arts should not only allow its students to make graduation their own unique experience, it should encourage it.

Students can spend four or five years as undergraduates.

We work and live in communities which enforce rules uniquely designed to limit freedoms that most adults take for granted.

Meanwhile, administrators with little vested interest in our beloved institutions routinely raise our tuition rates, room and board costs and book prices until it hurts.

Many students accumulate debts they will never be able to pay off while simultaneously looking forward to a future which is only slightly brighter for all of their efforts.

There is no greater insult which could possibly be added to four years of injurious, collegiate subservience than to be told, loudly and publicly, to behave according to some stuffy administrator’s definition of dignity.

We say that if after four more years of being treated like high-schoolers, students want to have a graduation ceremony that isn’t 100% mind-numbing boredom filled with lame “go forth and do great things” speeches — go for it!

What is so dignified about sitting still for three hours, anyway?

If the U of I administration is really concerned with dignity, they should start by dignifying student individuality and not get into playing the heavy-handed enforcer with students who would like nothing more than to leave their alma mater with a few happy memories.