Commencement 2008
Commencement Confetti
An omnium-gathering of notes and statistics, vital and otherwise
Harvard Humor
Self-deprecation was much in style this year. Dampening the spirits
of already drenched seniors on Class Day, Ben S. Bernanke ’75,
Federal Reserve Board chairman, recalled,
“Our speaker in 1975 was Dick Gregory, the social critic and comedian,
who was inclined toward the sharp-edged and satiric. Central bankers
don’t do satire as a rule, so I am going to have to strive for ‘kind of
interesting.’” Honorand J.K. Rowling told the afternoon
exercises audience, “Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary
honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought
of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win
situation!” (In a comment for the Facebook generation, she also said
about her college friends, “At our graduation we were bound by enormous
affection…and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain
photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us
ran for Prime Minister.”)
Wet Wear
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Members of the class of 1958.
Gathering on the Widener steps for their picture on June 4, members
of the class of 1958 made good use of their reunion umbrellas—until
they had to be furled so the photographer could capture the faces
underneath.
Fun Prohibited
The College class of 1983 reunion committee issued this advice to
members planning to return to Cambridge: “While we understand that
children are excited about the presence of J.K. Rowling on campus, we
discourage strongly their attendance at the afternoon Annual Meeting of
the Harvard Alumni Association. It will not be a child-oriented event
and there will be no one-on-one time with the author of any kind. Most
of us with children will be keeping our kids in the superb children’s
program during the afternoon....” In light of the “focus on reflections
on adult life” at the evening talent show, children were discouraged
from attending that, too.
Warming Warning
At the fiftieth-reunion symposium on societal and climate change,
professor of biological oceanography James J. McCarthy illustrated his
remarks with this polar-bear perspective on what is in store.
Insider Oratory
Chairman Bernanke’s was the first known Class Day address
with references (including a paper from the German Economic Review)
and footnotes; note 7 identified “Harvard’s introductory course in
principles of economics” for the uninitiated. In a Baccalaureate
twofer, President Faust assumed knowledge on her audience’s
part, alluding to magic in its American aspect, and to a regular,
raunchy undergraduate party: “Here I am in a pulpit, dressed like a
Puritan minister—an apparition that would have horrified many of my
distinguished forebears and perhaps rededicated some of them to the
extirpation of witches. This moment would have propelled Increase and
Cotton into a true ‘Mather Lather.’”
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Tobias Vanderhoop, M.P.A. ’08
Every 343 Years
Tobias Vanderhoop, M.P.A. ’08, said he was the first Aquinnah
Wampanoag man since Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, A.B. 1665, to earn a degree
from Harvard (see "Pay
Dirt in Yard Dig," page 80; the two men are related.) He’s a member
of the tribal council and is returning to Martha’s Vineyard to work for
the tribe.
Meteorology Report, U.K. Style
A late spring left campus lawns lush, with flowering things
(rhododendrons and kousa dogwoods, honey locust trees and the
yellowwoods specially planted in Tercentenary Theatre to blossom for
Commencement) still abloom. The downside, of course, was late-spring
weather: soaking rain on Wednesday, showers on Friday. Amid the gloom
of Commencement day, as temperatures fell to 58 degrees, an observer
remarked on the “English” mist, perhaps in honor of the principal
speaker? A resident and a visiting Briton promptly corrected that the
weather was “Irish”or “Scottish.”
An Exile’s Complaint
Twenty-fifth reunioner Marie Bellantoni, of Baltimore, an
endocrinologist, revealed a flaw in her Harvard housing: “I was in
Hurlbut my first year, and now they’ve stuck me in Greenough! I would
have killed to be in the Yard. They better put me there for my fiftieth
or I’ll never give to Harvard again.”
The Other Fiftieth Reunion
Photograph by Justin Ide/Harvard News Office
Dudley Co-op Fiftieth Reunion
On May 31, more than 80 former residents, plus family, friends, and
current residents attended the golden anniversary of the Dudley Co-op,
the residence for undergraduates who seek a more informal living
experience and prefer home cooking to House dining halls. Among those
present was Adam Abroms ’85, of San Luis Obispo, California—the first
to paint above 3 Sacramento Street’s entryway the designation “Center
for High Energy Metaphysics.”
“The Great” Ones
Members of the fiftieth reunion class wore white hats emblazoned
with the words “The Great 58” in red. James R. Houghton ’58,
M.B.A. ’62, Senior Fellow of Harvard College, wore his hat as he
marched into Tercentenary Theatre with classmates in the afternoon
parade. “It feels very good,” he said, to be processing —instead of
standing on the steps of Widener with his fellow Corporation members,
greeting the reunion ranks.
Secular Exercises
The Orator at the Phi Beta Kappa literary exercises, on June 3, was Steven
Weinberg, Higgins professor of physics from 1973 to 1982, co-winner
of the 1979 Nobel Prize, and now of the University of Texas. Given his
title, “Without God,” the exercises were conducted without benefit of
clergy; the chaplain is expected to return next year. In a richly
literary argument, Weinberg said that religious faith had weakened as
science explained formerly “mysterious phenomena,” “cast increasing
doubt on the special role of man, as an actor created by God,” and
sought authority not in an “infallible leader…or…a body of sacred
writings” but in improvable expertise. He talked about “how it is
possible to live without God,” directing listeners to the beauties and
pleasures of nature (“[W]hen bread and wine are no longer sacraments,
they will still be bread and wine”), of art, and of humor.
Cover Boy
Photograph by Stu Rosner
David C. Denison ’75
David C. Denison ’75 and Gretchen Friesinger ’75, then an associate
editor of this magazine, lent their son to illustrate a wildly popular
January- February 1991 article on college admissions. Now that Tom is
A.B. 2008, he gets his own subscription.
Feisty First Basewoman
From Radcliffe Institute dean Barbara J. Grosz’s introduction
of Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami and
this year’s Radcliffe Institute Medalist, on June 6: “A 2005 article in
U.S. News & World Report… recalls another episode from her
youth. ‘When, in the summer of 1951, the college student who was
coaching the local Annie Oakleys softball team wouldn’t let Donna play
first base, she bugged him until he gave in. “What she lacked in size,”
recalls the coach, one George Steinbrenner, “she made up for in
feistiness.”’”
Miscellany
Harvard conferred 6,966 degrees and 104 certificates, among them
1,564 degrees to undergraduates completing their work in the College,
907 M.B.A.s, 588 J.D.s, and 542 Ph.D.s.…President Faust got as
well as gave degrees this graduation season: she received honorary
doctorates from Penn, her alma mater, and Yale.…With construction in
Allston just begun (see "On
the University's Agenda," page 61), Allston Development Group chief
operating officer Christopher M. Gordon was already looking beyond
the next half-century: he told a fiftieth-reunion panel that after
an initial two-decade burst of accelerated building, Harvard would
resume its normal rate of physical growth, using up the capacity to
expand within 50 years.
Tech Talk
As the Federal Reserve chairman delivered potentially market-moving
remarks on inflation and interest rates during Class Day, they were
immediately reported on the Wall Street Journal website (shown
here) and other financial news sources.
And in a bit of Web-address product placement, Harvard Graduate
School of Education students, who in previous years waved children’s
books, this year flashed placards (below) touting www.EDin08.com—a school-improvement
advocacy group backed by Rockefeller, Gates, and Broad philanthropies.
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Harvard Graduate School of Education students
