Commencement 2008
University Magic
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Ana Vollmar ’08, of the veggie-loving Dudley House Co-op and Hamden, Connecticut.
A nation at war, an unsettled economy, a lengthy presidential campaign: inevitably, Harvard’s 357th Commencement touched on some of these concerns. On Wednesday, June 4, President Drew Faust’s remarks at the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps commissioning ceremony necessarily addressed matters military—as did the graduate English address by Iraq veteran Anthony C. Woods at the morning exercises next day (see "Talk, Part I: On Service to Country"). Wednesday afternoon, principal Class Day speaker, Ben S. Bernanke ’75, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, honored his audience with a serious analysis of contemporary inflation, productivity, and monetary policy, even as Harvard Kennedy School’s graduation speaker, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, M.P.A. ’71, a pioneering president of Liberia, noted another momentous event: “Who would have thought that a minority, albeit a Harvard graduate, would change forever the American political landscape?” Barack Obama, J.D. ’91, had clinched his party’s presidential nomination the night before.
But Commencement at heart is a celebration of Harvard and a festive rite of passage for the students (of diverse ages and disciplines) who have entered to grow in wisdom. So it was this year as well.
Now 372 years old, the University showed its knack for newness in a fistful of firsts. The conferral of degrees began when Michael D. Smith, in his first Commencement as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, addressed “Madam President, Fellows of Harvard College, Madam President and Members of the Board of Overseers.” The first degrees actually conferred by Faust as “Madam President” were to candidates from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences—the University’s newest school, elevated from divisional status just last autumn. (Presenting dean Venkatesh Narayanamurti’s first appearance in the role was also his last; he steps down in September.) Other newcomers included the deans of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, the Graduate School of Design, and—in her first week in office—Harvard College (Evelynn M. Hammonds, the first woman and African American to hold the post).
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Masters of theology Quardricos Bernard Driskell, of Atlanta, and Elizabeth Siwo-Okundi, a native of Kenya now living in Boston.
Hinting at things to come, Faust invoked the power of ritual twice during the morning ceremony. She had to admonish the cheering Ph.D. and Kennedy School candidates to wait for their moment, saying to the former, “I’m not done!” and telling the latter, “I have to say the words!” Conferrals of degrees, like magic spells, must be done strictly to form.
1 | 2 | continued >
