Thanks to the writers of the Fiske Guide to Colleges, Binghamton University advertises itself as “The Premier Public University in the Northeast.” You can see it on the 1980s-style electronic greeting board along the campus’ main entrance.

But once you’re here for eight-odd months per year, you see the University’s true colors: Not as a first-rate institution, but one that is only perpetually trying to be.

Nevermind the incompetence with which student’s Social Security numbers were repeatedly mishandled this year or the flurry of other University-sanctioned gaffes and prat falls.

To amend the words of Margaret Thatcher: “Being a first-rate school is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

A first-rate school would handle everything in first-rate fashion. So while the caliber of speakers scheduled for commencement ceremonies this weekend may be a superficial concern, many soon-to-be graduates surely feel that their time at BU is encapsulated by how the University arranged their last minutes together.

This year’s speakers do come with accomplished resumes: Ronald Ehrenberg, who will speak to the Graduate School, is director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute and a BU alum. Richard Felder, a chemical engineer with over 200 published works, and Ted Kooser, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, will each preside over a group of graduating Harpur College students. Raymond Osterhout, the former president of American Independent Reinsurance Corp., will speak to the professional schools’ graduates.

Yet the calmer reactions many students had when they heard of their speakers was, “Who?” Their heads would probably hurt if they looked to area schools.

Maya Angelou will be speaking to Cornell’s graduating class. Dennis Archer, the former head of the American Bar Association and the former mayor of Detroit will — for some reason — speak at the University at Albany. Alan Page, Minnesota’s first African-American Supreme Court justice and a former NFL player, will speak at Ithaca College. ABC News’ Bob Woodruff will speak at Syracuse University.

But maybe those are schools whose company Binghamton can’t keep.

Most puzzling is that BU did have a relatively big name for its December commencement, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien. But the winter ceremonies are a much smaller affair. It seems that the University was more concerned with marketing the grandeur of a December commencement, now to the detriment of its May counterpart.

Either way, it feels like the “premier” school dropped the ball once again, and the class of 2008 gets to watch it roll for one last time.