<p>"I hope Michael Jackson will be the commencement speaker at my school; that guy is seriously amazing."</p>
<p>That's one word you might use to describe him....I could think of others, more fitting. "Only in America can a black man grow up to be a white women"...Star Jones.;)</p>
<p>I think some public official of our state spoke at my grad. I just remember it being boring.</p>
<p>My neice graduated from probably the smallest state u. in our system last year(it would be on the lowest "tier" there is for those who believe in that). The speaker at her grad. was Pat Conroy. It was very entertaining and down to earth, most interesting grad. speech I ever heard.</p>
<p>Clinton spoke at Michigan's commencement last year. I would much rather listen to Rowling. And would prefer Obama over her.</p>
<p>Class day speakers are more fun. Conan O'Brien gave a very funny one, which is available on the internet. Ali G gave an outrageous one, which led the Harvard administration to retaliate by imposing Tim Russert the following year. The students counted the number of times when Russert repeated lines he'd used before in some other speeches. I understand there were several dozens.</p>
<p>The Reverend William Sloane Coffin spoke at my commencement and I still remember it as very powerful... his closing lines have stayed with me ever since: "May God deny you what you want, unless it is what you need. May you be part of the solution and not part of the problem. And may God deny you peace, but give you glory."</p>
<p>I still think Jon Stewart's address at William & Mary, his alma mater, several years ago is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>The students counted the number of times when Russert repeated lines he'd used before in some other speeches.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Only at Harvard would the kids know enough about Russert's other speeches to care...</p>
<p>Is the Stewart W&M address anywhere on the internet?</p>
<p>Bono gave an excellent commencement address at Penn two or three years ago. And it was custom-written, too. He (or someone in his employ) had clearly done some significant research about what hot issues at Penn and in Philadelphia were. He didn't pretend to be an academic rather than a singer, but it was beautifully structured, literate, and moving. I don't know whether he wrote it or someone wrote it for him -- and the same is probably true of addresses by Jon Stewart or Conan O'Brien -- but it was clear at the very least that he had excellent taste and "perfect pitch" for what would work.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=3650%5B/url%5D">http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=3650</a>
Jon Stewart 2004 William & Mary address</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Class day speakers are more fun. Conan O'Brien gave a very funny one, which is available on the internet<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Al Franken '73 gave a hilarious Class Day speech a five years ago:</p>
<p>Al</a> Franken Class Day 2002 Address</p>
<p>Here's an excerpt:</p>
<p>"It occurred to me soon after that I might be in danger of flunking Soc Sci 134. And I needed to pass it in order to graduate. So, I went to my T.F. and asked him what I needed to pass. And he told me that Dr. Bell thought I was drug addict. So he suggested I talk to Bell and ask him what I could do to make sure I passed the course. </p>
<p>So, I made an appointment with Dr. Bell for noon the next day. When I got to his office, he was meeting with a grad student, so his secretary asked me to go out in to the lounge and wait for him, where I sat on the couch and immediately fell asleep. The next thing I saw was Dr. Bell, leaning over me saying, "Do you want to sleep or do you want to talk to me?" </p>
<p>I said, "talk with you!" So we met in his office and I explained to him about the play and the rehearsals going late and the building being overheated, and Dr. Bell told me he felt it was a student's responsibility to stay conscious during class. Then he told me that the final exam--and the whole grade was based on the final exam, there were no papers, no quizzes, no tests, no midterms--the final exam was based solely on the reading. If I did all the reading, I'd be fine. So, I thanked him and went back to my room and looked at the reading list for the first time, and it was the longest reading list I'd ever seen at Harvard. No one could possibly do all this reading. So, I spent the entire reading period in Lamont reading the reading list. And actually, it was great. The entire social history of our country unfolded before me there in Lamont. It was inspiring really and it made me wish I had stayed awake for the lectures. </p>
<p>So, then on the way to the exam, it was in Sever, it occurred to me that maybe Bell was screwing with me. You know, why wouldn't he screw with a drug addict? I mean, what if the exam isn't on the reading? What if it's on the lectures? So I get into Sever and I get my blue book and I get the exam and I look at the first question, and it's directly from the reading. Second question, directly from the reading. They're all--everything on this exam--directly from the reading. </p>
<p>So a few days later I go to the T.F.'s office to pick up my exam, and he says, "Bell's ****ed. You got the highest grade of anyone in the entire class." It's a lecture of about 120 people. Of course. I was the only one who did all the reading. So now Bell thinks that a drug addict got the highest grade in his class. So, I'm laughing until I remember that I took the course pass-fail. </p>
<p>To this day, I believe if I had gotten an A in Soc Sci 134 instead of a pass, my Stuart Smalley movie would have been a huge hit, and I'd be a big movie star today."</p>
<p>Mathmom, </p>
<p>We were in the same class! I had Solzhenitsyn too. We skipped the afternoon exercises, went out for lunch with families, and then just hung out all afternoon. Twenty years later, I thought "I had a chance to hear Solzhenitsyn speak, and I blew it off??" My husband's class ('79) had Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor of West Germany. I remember seeing sharpshooters on the roof of Widener Library (or at least, that's what we thought they were).</p>
<p>My college commencement speaker was John Kenneth Galbraith back in the 70s. I cannot for my life remember what he said.</p>
<p>Dr. Seuss spoke at Lake Forest College (humanity.org</a> - voices - seuss<em>commencement</em>poem)%5Dhumanity.org">http://humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?page=seuss_commencement_poem)). Also on the site are other memorable commencement speeches.</p>
<p>I'd feel really sad if my kid blew off a one-chance- only to hear a great speaker because they felt they had to attend a class instead! That is what college is for!</p>
<p>starbright, this is D's very short term on a 3-2-3 calendar. She had a test coming up & felt the need to be in class, because the prof actually does teach. Frankly, I am proud of her for understanding that there are choices in life, and we can't always do what we want to do. It's not like she can't watch speeches on tv. For what it's worth, though, I am sad she couldn't go ... but still pleased she can make tough choices.</p>
<p>ivoryk, what school? The closing lines of that speech are wonderful. I am assuming you went to a pretty cool school to have such a speaker (I confess I had not heard of him before).</p>
<p>In 2005, John Lithgow spoke at the Harvard graduation -- he was a terrific speaker and memorable. He also read from his soon-to-be published kid's book about Mahalia, the (female) mouse who went to college and became a scientist (despite Sommers' remarks!).</p>
<p>In response to another poster who said he'd prefer Obama........Obama spoke at DS's 2006 Northwestern graduation and he also received an Honorary degree. But before the entire ceremony was over, he tiptoed out followed by his bodyguards. I thought that was pretty tacky. In 2007 Julia Louise Dreyfuss spoke and friends said she was great.</p>
<p>Tom Hanks was the commencement speaker at Vassar when his daughter graduated in 2005:</p>
<p>yeah i'm extremely jealous of those Harvard grads.</p>
<p>I got to see Obama speak at my cousin's graduation last year! She went to Southern New Hampshire University</p>
<p>William Sloane Coffin was the inspiration for the Doonesbury cleric. He was chaplain at Yale... then at Riverside Church when I was fortunate enough to live in New York at the same time... then formed an anti-nuclear group out of Washington. He died only recently. I graduated from Denison in 1979 and he was wonderful. My favorite memory from the commencement... which had been forced into the fieldhouse because of weather... was when a parent with an infant started to shuffle out of her seat when her baby started to cry. "Oh let her cry," he said, "that is our future!"</p>
<p>I guess we just differ in priorities. See, I'd want my kid to know when to skip class. I am a full professor and have taught for many years in a top 10 school. I like to believe I pack a ton into every class, especially the advanced technical ones, but no single class of mine (or anyones!) is ever that important in the <em>big scheme of things</em>. College should never be about getting the highest GPa, at least not at the expense of mind opening and unique experiences that only college can give you. You'll never remember a single class, but you'll always remember the special speech or the event.</p>
<p>Heh, my husband was class of '79 too. Small world! I just asked my husband if he remembers who his graduation speaker was and he had no idea and that despite the fact that we spent five years in Germany. (Though admittedly we arrived the year after Schmidt left politics.)</p>
<p>Pete Seeger was our graduation speaker in l972 at Oberlin. He lamented the priorities of the military-industrial complex, with banjo accompaniment. Afterwards he sat out on Tappan Square eating tuna fish sandwiches with anyone who'd care to join him, under a tree. He was excellent.</p>