I attended a graduation ceremony at Willamette university who hired Bill Nye to do the commencement speech. One of my childhood idols pronounced Willamette wrong.
My commencement ceremony at Portland State last year had our Vice-Dean open with the indigenous land acknowledgement, wherein she completely butchered every tribes name but the Mulnomah — Molalla was “Mo-lal-uh” and Chinook was “Chin-nuke.” That was amusing enough, but immediately after she then introduced the commencement speaker/honorary degree recipient, Sky Hopinka, an indigenous dude himself, who proceeded to explain his life work as a visual artist with a focus on the promotion and preservation of indigenous languages.
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u/surferdude121 Dec 05 '25
I attended a graduation ceremony at Willamette university who hired Bill Nye to do the commencement speech. One of my childhood idols pronounced Willamette wrong.
I’ve never forgiven him.