While Dartmouth seniors will have to wait another month to hear former NBC Nightly News anchor and reporter Tom Brokaw speak on the Green, notable businesspeople, celebrities, and politicians are delivering commencement addresses at colleges and universities across the nation this week.
Perhaps this year's most high-profile speaker, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke at the University of Pennsylvania's commencement Monday. Annan proved a fairly controversial choice when a group of Penn students calling themselves Kofi Off Campus drafted a petition denouncing the choice of Annan as speaker. Despite the group's criticism, Annan's Monday morning address went smoothly, according to those who attended.
Although initially apprehensive about Annan's speech, Ali Floam '05, who graduated from Penn on Monday, was pleasantly surprised by the audience's behavior.
"Despite the anticipated opposition, everyone was extremely respectful at the ceremony," she said.
New York University's choice of Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman also drew criticism and dismay from some seniors. Students had requested celebrities like Jon Stewart. Tilghman's own institution secured Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison as its commencement speaker.
Other notable speakers include Apple Computer and Pixar Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs at Stanford University, actor John Lithgow at Harvard University, and Chilean President Ricardo Lagos at Duke University. Following its longstanding tradition, Yale University will not have a commencement speaker, but Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton will speak on Class Day, the day before Yale's commencement ceremony.
Most Ivy League institutions' searches for commencement speakers begin many months before seniors graduate. Dartmouth's process for selecting a commencement speaker begins in the fall, when the Council on Honorary Degrees asks faculty, staff and members of the senior class for their recommendations for honorary degree recipients. The council then amasses a list that is sent to the Board of Trustees and the President, who choose several honorary degree recipients, one of whom will deliver the keynote address.
"I know it's very exciting to have a high-profile speaker," said Public Affairs Officer Genevieve Haas of this year's choice, "but when the College considers choosing a speaker, they're looking for a someone who has had an accomplishment that has contributed to society in some way. A speaker whose accomplishments are worthy of emulation."
Brokaw, who is scheduled to give Dartmouth's keynote address June 12, spoke Monday at Emory University's commencement. Brokaw also received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Emory -- the same honor that Dartmouth will give Brokaw in June.
"Having Tom Brokaw as our speaker underscores Emory's longstanding commitment to international understanding," said Emory President James Wagner in a press release.
