Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen will deliver the keynote address at the College's 227th Commencement ceremonies on June 8, the College announced yesterday. Lipponen will also receive an honorary doctor of laws degree.
Lipponen, who is a member of the Class of 1964, is one of the most prominent living alumni of the College and the only Dartmouth graduate who is the head of state of a country, College President James Freedman said.
"It's wonderful to have an alumnus as our speaker," Freedman said. "I think we'll be able to hold him up to the world and say, 'This is the kind of career we produce in our alumni,'" he said.
Lipponen was elected prime minister of Finland in April 1995 and has been chairman of the country's Social Democratic Party since 1993. He is a leader in the effort to forge a new European monetary union and has won acclaim for beginning to lead Finland out of an economic crisis thought by many to be the worst experienced by any Western European country in the last 50 years.
The announcement of Lipponen as the keynote speaker comes just three weeks before the Commencement ceremonies, the latest announcement of a Commencement speaker in recent memory.
Freedman said he kept Lipponen's status as this year's speaker secret so students would not protest for someone more famous. Freedman said the College prefers speakers who have lead thoughtful, accomplished lives as opposed to entertainers and other celebrities, who have become a hot commodity as Commencement speakers across the country.
"There's such a high premium on celebrity these days," Freedman said. "I wanted to make sure we greet Prime Minister Lipponen with great respect and the admiration he deserves."
Freedman alluded to Commencement speaker decisions at other colleges that have been protested by students, like when First Lady Barbara Bush was selected by Wellesely College and National Review founder William F. Buckley was picked to be Vassar College's graduation speaker.
In both cases, Freedman said, students organized and signed petitions lobbying against Bush and Buckley, and both schools were embarrassed in the media.
Freedman said he hopes Dartmouth students will see Lipponen as "a person of very significant achievement" and someone who has had an admirable career, despite his relative obscurity to American undergraduates.
Lipponen last visited the College in November 1995, when he spoke to an audience of 20 faculty and students about his support for a strong European Union, and Finland's role within a unified European continent.
Classics Professor William Scott, the chairman of the Council on Honorary Degrees, said the contacts Lipponen made during his 1995 visit desired that he return as this year's Commencement speaker.
"He was strongly recommended by the people who met him" when he was last in Hanover, Scott said.
The Council on Honorary Degrees filters the suggestions down to a smaller list, and recommends a group of honorary degree candidates to the College's Board of Trustees, which selects and approves the honorary degree recipients.
The council is composed of members of the College's faculty of arts and sciences, professional school faculty and the president of the senior class.
In his two years as prime minister of Finland, he has gained a reputation as an atypical politician, because he appears easygoing but has little time for small talk.
One Finnish publication said Lipponen does not "waste time on empty talk. Instead, he gets straight to the point and stays there."
Lipponen spent the 1960-61 academic year at the College as an exchange student studying American prose and philosophy. Although he only spent a year at Dartmouth, Lipponen is a member of the Class of 1964 because the College considers people who matriculate to be a member of the class with which he or she would graduate, according to Public Affairs Director Laurel Stavis.
This will mark the second time in four years that an alumnus delivers the Commencement address. Robert Reich '68 was the Commencement speaker for the Class of 1994.
There was widespread speculation that this year's Commencement speaker would be a woman, since the College decided to coeducate 25 years ago this spring. But Lipponen's selection marks the sixth straight year in which a male will give the keynote address.
Before Lipponen became prime minister of Finland, he enjoyed a long career in the Social Democratic Party. He started as a research secretary in 1971 and went on to become secretary to the prime minister.
He held office in the Finnish parliament from 1983-87 and won re-election in 1991 before becoming chairman of the Social Democrats in 1993.
Before his political career, Lipponen was a journalist, first as a student at Helsinki University and later as a freelance reporter for the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation.
When he was at the College in 1995, Lipponen said he decided to study at Dartmouth in 1960 because he was fluent in English and was interested in international relations.
Lipponen, who lived in Cohen Residence Hall, was a member of the swimming team and also served food and worked in the kitchen at Thayer Dinning Hall to finance his education at the College.
Lipponen was born in Turtola, Finland in 1941.
