Commencement Confetti
An omnium-gatherum of notes and statistics, vital and otherwise
Student
linen-crew workers made up the dorm beds that would welcome reunioners.
Some beds were then changed as alumni departed and new ones arrived.
According to supervisor Robert Wolfreys, the students made up approximately
4,300 beds before their work was done.
TALK,
A SAMPLER
"I'd
like to begin by thanking the class marshals for inviting me here
today," said Class Day guest speaker Conan O'Brien '85, the host of
Late Night with Conan O'Brien. "The last time I was invited
to Harvard, it cost me $110,000." O'Brien announced his goal for the
afternoon. "I want to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement
speaker, moral philosopher and economist Amartya Sen." O'Brien's remarks
may be found in their virtual entirety at www.harvard-magazine.com.
Andrew
S. Grove, the chairman of Intel, was Class Day speaker at the Business
School and would receive an honorary degree the next day. In making
decisions, he said, "use intuition and analysis, not intuition
or analysis....Bounce your decision, if driven by intuition,
off the analytical skills you have acquired at such expense."
Donna
E. Shalala, U.S. secretary of health and human services, made a whirlwind
appearance to deliver the Class Day address at the Kennedy School.
She gave her audience of almost ripened "wonks-in-training" this tip:
"Be flexible, and don't expect to win every time. Standing on principle
is not the same as standing in cement."
A
survivor of civil war in her native Nigeria and a candidate for a
master's degree in public health delivered the Graduate English Address
at the Commencement exercises. During the war, when she was nine,
said Arese Ukpoma Carrington, her father told her, "Look after your
younger siblings. They are defenseless. You must defend the defenseless."
"Defend the defenseless," Carrington exhorted her audience. "Of all
the things that I have witnessed, the most compelling is the power
of love that knows no boundaries. The most disheartening is the power
of hate that builds all boundaries."
RECALLING
THE NAUGHTY OLD
DAYS
In
a preamble to her "Songs for Scientists, Parts 1 and 2" at the Phi
Beta Kappa exercises, poet Heather McHugh '69 made something of her
free-spirited Harvard past, which apparently contributed to a delay
in getting her degree. Describing herself as "chastened but not chaste,"
she said she was glad to be invited back and honored on such a formal
occasion in such a formal way. In her time at Harvard, she said, "'liberal'
arts seemed so busy indulging the adjective, they forgot the noun."
AFTER
THE FALL
Radcliffe
and Harvard merged last fall. At the annual luncheon of the Radcliffe
College Alumnae Association the day after Commencement, Mary Maples
Dunn, acting dean of the Radcliffe Institute, stepped to the podium
and said, "It's customary at this time for the president or dean to
say a few words about the past year, and what I would say is, 'Whew!'"
The
Radcliffe Medal went to Susan Love, M.D., a breast cancer specialist
at UCLA, who said, "There is no question, we have the potential of
seeing the eradication of breast cancer in my lifetime." She is 52.
Next
October, the RCAA will formally consider changing its name to the
Radcliffe Association and amending its bylaws to reflect a mission
of support for the Radcliffe Institute, rather than Radcliffe College.
Because
this year, for the first time in history, undergraduate women were
members of Harvard College, Dunn had no official role on Commencement
morning. But after conferring degrees on undergraduates, President
Neil L. Rudenstine introduced both Dunn and Drew Gilpin Faust, dean-elect
of the Radcliffe Institute, to the throng in Tercentenary Theatre.
AWARD
ON HOLD
The
$5,000 Captain Jonathan Fay Prize, Radcliffe College's highest honor
for a graduating woman, was not awarded this year. In the wake of
the merger, the prize may no longer legally be restricted to women,
and officials of the new Radcliffe Institute and Harvard College needed
more time to decide on what revised criteria the award would be based
in future so as to satisfy the law, and honor the spirit, of the 1907
gift establishing the prize. Some gender-specific prizes were
awarded--as, for example, the Paul Revere Frothingham Prize to a graduating
senior exhibiting "manliness" among required character traits. Noah
Z. Seton of Kirkland House and Pound Ridge, New York, went away with
that one. Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis announced during Commencement
week that next year all College prizes and fellowships will be available
to men and women without gender restrictions. In the case of the Frothingham
Prize, "manliness" will be interpreted as "character." Men were permitted
this year for the first time to buy tickets to the Sadie Hawkins-style
Senior Soirée and were welcomed into Radcliffe Yard for the
first coeducational strawberry tea.
A
REUNION ROW
Much
of the celebrated "Rude 'n' Smooth" crew of the mid 1970s, whose members
came heavily from the class of 1975, got together for a reunion row
at 6:15 a.m. from Newell Boathouse on Commencement morning, with Alan
W. Shealy '75 in his customary seat at stroke.
LOOSE
END TIED UP
Actress
Elisabeth J. Shue, who earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal
of a prostitute in Leaving Las Vegas, left Harvard and her
mates in the class of 1988 short of earning her degree to launch a
career in Hollywood. But she came back, and on June 8 was admitted
to the fellowship of educated persons, cum laude in government.
VERITATEM
SERVARE
In
her Latin Salutatory, one of the addresses by students on Commencement
day, Kathleen A. Stetsko '00, of Leverett House and Elida, Ohio, told
the truth, in Latin. "We say, 'Professor Feldstein, I truly enjoyed
your lecture on Social Security' [O Professor Feldstein, inquimus,
gaudeo tua oratione de securitate publica], when we mean, 'Sign
my recommendation! Sign my recommendation! Sign my recommendation!'
Or we say, 'I am truly excited by the opportunities in telecom consulting,'
when we mean 'McKinseius me conducat ne hoc negotium mediocre mihi
habendum sit!' [God, I hope McKinsey calls, so I don't have to
take this idiotic job.] We say, 'Rub the toe of the statue for good
luck' [Tange digitum statuae ut fortunam habeatis], when we
mean, 'Stupid tourists' [rustici stolidi]."
