Harvard invented
college reunions.
The first reunion
took place in 1643,
a year after the first
commencement, when alumni
were invited back to celebrate
with the new graduates.
During Harvard's
bicentennial year of 1636,
the alumni festivities were
particularly exuberant.
Ralph Waldo Emerson of
the Harvard class of 1821
wrote about the annual Harvard
alumni parade on that day
in July of 1836.
Here is what he
wrote in his journal.
"Cambridge at anytime is full
of ghosts, but on that day
the anointed eye saw
the crowd of spirits
that mingled with the
procession in the vacant spaces
year by year as the
classes proceeded,
and then the far
longer train of ghosts
that followed the
company of the men that
wore before us
the college honors
and the laurels of the
state, the long winding
train reaching back
into eternity."
And you can hear in the
background the Harvard band
playing, and the long
winding train of alumni
is forming in Harvard yard.
Rennie, maybe you
can tell us what
we can expect to
hear this afternoon.
Thank you, Nancy.
Nancy noted that she graduated
from the college in 1976
and received her MBA from
Harvard Business School in '78.
She has been a member
of the Committee
for the Happy Observance
of Commencements
for over 20 years now and
is currently the Alumni
Association's treasurer.
I believe that this is
her eighth year doing
this broadcasting in
the afternoon exercises.
So it's a pleasure to join you,
Nancy, high above courtside
here as Johnny Most used to
say before the Celtics games.
In our case, we have three steps
up in what is called the tree
house on the stage left here
in the Tercentenary Theatre.
And I'd also like to
take the opportunity
to thank Rachel Lamson,
Director of Board
Services for the
Alumni Association,
and her assistant Kate
Freed who has put together
a thick syllabus for us today.
I also want to thank Diane
MacDonald and Deborah
Smullyan in the Alumni
Association's Class Reports
Office for providing information
on the fours and nines, which
are the classes that are
reunioning this week.
Finally, I want to
thank our camera
crew, Kathy O'Connell,
Bob [? De Maison, ?]
and Ed McNamara for
the nice job that they
do with keeping us all
in line and showing off
this wonderful event.
We're going to see today
the afternoon exercises
of commencement, robe
after robes scattered
a rainbow, robes after robes
scattering the rainbow,
as David McCord said.
Although we don't see as
many of those in robes
this afternoon as
we see the alumni,
as this is the annual meeting
of the Alumni Association.
And this is the fourth meeting
of the Alumni Association.
They hold three per year in
the fall, winter, and spring
and then finish up with the
annual Alumni Association,
which we are commencing today.
The dignitaries are
just coming around.
They've already been
started off with the band.
They are led off by the Chief
Marshal and his aids, Richard
Barth, who is the Chief
Marshal for commencement.
He is of the 25th
reunion class, but he
was elected by his
classmates in the fall.
Both Nancy and I have
chaired that committee
at one time or another.
And it's the best
and the brightest
from the class that are chosen.
There are usually eight
or nine candidates
selected by the class and
voted on by class members.
The Chief Marshal appoints
alumni to assist the Committee
for the Happy Observance
of Commencements
and with such activities
as crowd management,
the general alumni spread,
the tree spread for college
graduates who have had
their 50th reunion,
and the Chief Marshal spread for
distinguished guests, honorans,
family, and faculty.
Richard Barth, class of '89,
is the CEO of KIPP Foundation,
as Nancy mentioned,
Knowledge and Power
Program, a network of schools.
KIPP has grown to 141
schools, serving over
50,000 students
across the country
in communities
where roughly half
of the students drop out of
high school and only one in 10
will earn a college degree.
Among KIPP students, 95% of whom
are African American or Latino
and 86% of whom are
low-income families, 93%
graduate from high school
and 83% go on to college.
We will hear the welcome from
the president's of the Chief
Marshal of the
Harvard Association.
They're just coming
down the aisle.
You see can see that--
They're the class of 1928
to the class of 1958.
Our oldest alumni today
are in that group.
You'll see the men
in their top hats.
Those are men who belong
to the Happy Observance
of Commencement Committee,
Alumni Association committee
that was founded in the
1860s to make sure everybody
would be happy on
commencement day.
Although, Rennie, I
understand they also
began to serve alcohol
on commencement,
and that made the
people even happier.
You see the men have
their black top hats.
The women-- you saw earlier
my hat with the feathers.
That's the woman's
version of the top hat,
and we see many women
in Harvard Yard today
who have the top hats.
So here we have the procession
of our oldest alumni.
And today we're happy to welcome
the two oldest alumni, Lillian
Sugarman from the
Radcliffe class of 1937
and Robert Rothschild from
the Harvard class of 1939.
Our President of the Harvard
Alumni Association this year
is Catherine A. Gellert,
AB '93, known as Kate.
Kate joined the HAA as an
elected director in 2007.
She is a former co-chair
of the Executive Committee
of the Harvard College
Fund and Vice President
of Harvard's Engagement
and Marketing Committee.
A Class Reunion
Gift Chair, she also
served as treasurer of the
Harvard Club of New York City
before becoming
the HAA president.
Kate has an MBA from Columbia.
She works in her family's
Manhattan private investment
business, the
Windcrest Partners.
Her parents, Michael E. Gellert,
class of '53, and Mary C.
Gellert, a 1957 graduate of
the Harvard Radcliffe Program
in Business Administration.
And we see now the
25th Reunion Class.
The great class of 1989
is filing onto the stage.
They're passing
right in front of us.
And there are
hundreds of members
of the class we will have return
today for their 25th reunion.
The 25th reunion
is considered to be
the major reunion
of a Harvard class.
And it's the 25th, the
30th, and the 50th classes
who are celebrating
with us today.
The 30th, 35th, and
40th may be here,
but the chances are that they
are not because they will hold
their reunions in
the fall, next fall.
And this helps with the
Alumni Association staff
because it doesn't
give them as much work
to do when they would
have all of the classes.
So we're seating the classes
proceeding now down the aisle.
When Kate comes up, she will
welcome us all here today.
And then we will sing
"Gaudeamus Igitur,"
or "So Let Us Rejoice," which is
a popular former academic hymn
sung in Latin.
Despite its use as such, it
is a jocular, light-hearted
composition that pokes
fun at university life.
The song dates to the
early 18th century
based on the Latin
manuscript from 1287.
It was known as a
beer-drinking song
in many ancient
universities, and it
tells you to live the
fullest even though you
know you can die sometime.
This is including
singing this song.
We will sing it cheerfully.
It's a beautiful day here in
Cambridge, a perfect afternoon.
It's sunny and cool with
the temperature in the 60s.
Those of us on the
Happy Committee
firmly believe that our
late beloved university
minister Peter Gomes is
managing things from on high
to make sure we had
a beautiful day.
Yesterday it was cold and rainy.
Tomorrow it is predicted
to be cold and rainy.
But our Reverend Peter Gomes
is watching out for us today,
and we have a perfect
day here in Cambridge.
Professor Gomes, who was the
Plummer Professor of Christian
Morals for more
than 40 years, has
said of Harvard commencement
that, "Someone observing
the rather casual
dignity of the day
remarked that
commencement is more
like a lawn party than a ballet.
And a less charitable
but more astute observer
suggested that the vast
assemblage in formation
in the old yard was very much
like that wonderfully chaotic
game of croquet with
flamingos and hedgehogs
in Alice in Wonderland.
First-time visitors are
horrified at what appears to be
rank confusion"-- as you see
today what appears to be rank
confusion-- "but then remember
that this is after all Harvard,
where conformity even of
self-preservation has been
elevated to the rank
of an original sin.
That it works at all is
a tribute to patience
and goodwill, and the general
sense that, come what may,
this day is to be enjoyed."
Rennie, I'm not sure we're
going to see anybody playing
croquet with flamingos
today, but it is certainly
a beautiful sight to be sitting
here watching the alumni
precess into the
Tercentenary Theatre.
Well, it is a lovely
day, as Nancy said.
And we can just begin to
see groups coming in now.
Over the years that
I've been doing this--
and I think is my 30th year
in the Happy Committee--
I've watched the
tree spread grow,
which is all of those graduates
over the 50th reunion class.
And now that the tree
spread has grown,
it takes much longer
for them to come in.
So notice in the picture
that you're seeing there
that the oldest grads
are just beginning
to make their way
into the stadium.
At the same time,
we have a number
of groups of younger classes,
different divisions, that
are coming in from
the side, on what
would be stage right for you.
Or if you're looking
over by University Hall,
they would be coming
in from there.
Rennie, can we
continue with the order
of the program for
this afternoon?
Absolutely.
Kate will start with
remarks and recognition.
And my guess is she
will first recognize
Richard Barth, as Nancy has
mentioned, class of '89 who's
the Chief Marshal
for commencement.
Traditionally,
the Chief Marshal,
which we mentioned was
picked by his classmates,
or her classmates
and their classmates,
doesn't say anything
at this ceremony,
because at the end of
three days of reunioning
of their 25th reunion,
chances are he
or she may not
have a voice left.
At least that was the case
my year as the Chief Marshal.
I can remember asking our class
football captain Tim Anderson
to sit next to me and jab
me when I closed my eyes.
Needless to say, I had a very
sore arm for days afterwards.
I think Kate will also introduce
Robert Rothschild, which
we mentioned is the oldest
grad, not the oldest living grad
but the oldest grad that's here
today, and Lillian Sugarman,
class of '37, who I gather
is older than he is,
representing the oldest
Radcliffe graduate that's here
today.
At that time, we will hear from
Kate Gellert, the Announcement
of Overseers, HA, directors,
and election results.
And we'll wait for Kate
to make that announcement.
The final tally
has just come in.
It's an area that we wish more
graduates would take the time
to elect.
It's always a small
percentage that
really do elect the
overseers and the directors
of the Harvard Alumni
Association, which
is rather sad because it is
an opportunity for getting
the best and brightest to
help serve on the overseers
and for the Harvard Alumni
Association as directors.
After that has happened,
we'll have the presentation
of the Harvard Medals.
The Harvard Medal is
awarded by the HAA
for extraordinary service
to Harvard University.
The word service includes
teaching, administration,
fundraising, and other
alumni activities.
Three to five
Harvard Medals have
been awarded at
each commencement
since 1981, except for the
350th celebration in 1986
when 20 medals were presented.
It's an interesting
mix of graduates
who have received this medal.
To name but a few, Al
Gordon, class and '23,
who Gordon Track
Center is named after
and a very loyal alum
to Harvard in many ways.
Former Radcliffe
President Matina Horner.
Poet and fundraiser
David McCord,
whom I quoted earlier as robe
after robe scattered a rainbow.
David was a much-beloved
fundraiser for Harvard,
and [INAUDIBLE].
In fact, I started my career
as a father-son combination,
my father class of 1919, and
I a father-son combination
fundraising for David.
More familiar names might be
hockey coach Bill Cleary, who
we've seen here today, my
old track coach Bill McCurdy,
crew coach Harry Parker,
who received it last year,
I believe, Nancy, if
I remember correctly.
Yes.
Librarian Agnes Mongan.
And also showing you what
extraordinary service means,
Eddie Chamberlain, who for
years was Kirkland House's best
beloved superintendent.
And here, Rennie, we have a
picture of the 50th reunion
class, the great class of 1964,
as they line up to precess
into Tercentenary Theatre.
Tercentenary Theatre is
called Tercentenary Theatre,
and it was dedicated at the
300th anniversary celebration
of Harvard's founding in 1936.
It's bordered by Widener
Library, University Hall,
Memorial Church, and
the great Sever Hall,
which was designed by the
renowned American architect
and Harvard graduate
H.H. Richardson.
The tent which the
dignitaries are under
was replaced from an old one
that leaked badly in 1985.
So the present tent
when it is replaced
will become part
of the past tense.
Maybe I ought to get a
symbol crash on that, Nancy.
We'll progress down
after the presentation
of the medals, which if not,
we can mention those, perhaps.
You've got them right there.
I've got them here, I think.
Unfortunately,
there are usually,
as I said, any number of
them, but they're usually
have been three in the past.
And this year there will be only
two presented at this ceremony.
It will be Louis Newell
from the class of 1957.
Unfortunately, he is
unable to be with us today.
But Emily Pulitzer.
Right.
And Anand Mahindra.
Anand is from the class
of 1977, MBA 1981.
And Emily Pulitzer received a
Master of Arts degree in 1963.
I should mention we will
watch the 50th reunion go by,
that that's Scott
Harshbarger's class.
There it is, the
great class of 1964.
Interesting, the reunion
classes as they come in,
Nancy mentioned the 80th
as being the oldest,
but perhaps the class
of 1970 and 1944
is having their 70th reunion.
And that's an
interesting classes
in that their
class secretary who
was appointed at the time
they graduate, Dan Fenn,
has been at it ever since 1944.
He's the oldest class secretary
and the oldest in longevity.
And it's interesting to
note that the class of 1944,
as far as we know, the only
class to have had five Nobel
Prize winners in it-- two
presidential advisers, of which
Dan Fenn was actually--
Dan Fenn headed up
the Kennedy Library
at one point.
And two former
musical composers.
So it's a well-known class, and
there are quite a few of them
here today.
Continuing with the afternoon
program, Kate Gellert
will inform us of class gifts
to the Harvard College Fund.
One gift that is the
most important gift
was one by Ken Griffin,
who gave $175 million
to Harvard College, which is the
biggest single gift ever made
to Harvard College.
The money will largely go to
the college's financial aid
program.
The annual cost of
attending Harvard College
is currently $60,000,
and more than 70%
of Harvard
undergraduates receive
some form of financial aid.
Good deal of that, probably
$40 million of that,
which Nancy mentioned, will go
towards creating 200 Griffin
scholars, and $125 million
providing three-to-one matching
funds for a new program that's
to create 600 scholarship.
In return, Harvard will rename
its college financial aid
office and its director's
title after Griffin.
Griffin, who is estimated
worth 4.4 billion,
founded Citadel one year
after graduating from Harvard.
Harvard embarked last
September on a $6.5
billion-dollar campaign, and
this gift from Ken Griffin
will be part of that Harvard
campaign, which I understand,
Rennie, is going very well.
And so Harvard's trying
to raise $6.5 million
over the course of
the next five years.
It's going along well,
as I understand it.
We call ourselves in the Alumni
Association the friendraisers.
And we call our colleagues in
the money-raising end of it
the fundraisers.
So both of them
work well together.
After the introduction and we
hear about the financial end
of things, the
band will come down
the aisles playing
"Harvardiana."
They'll swing down
the center aisle
with a collection of
Harvard fight songs,
including Tom Lehrer's
"Fight Fiercely Harvard."
Some of you may
be aware of this.
He put this together
back in the '50s.
"Fight fiercely, Harvard.
Fight, fight, fight.
Demonstrate to them our will.
Albeit they possess the might,
nevertheless we have the will.
We will celebrate our victory.
We'll have the whole
team up for tea.
How jolly.
Throw that spheroid
down the field,
and fight, fight, fight."
Following Harvardiana, we will
have the report to the alumni
by our president,
Drew Gilpin Faust.
She is the 28th president
of the university,
and she will give us her annual
report, which will give us
a picture of current
happenings along with a view
toward the future.
She will be with
us tomorrow, too,
when we celebrate Radcliffe
Day and receive the Radcliffe
Medal.
It's been 15 years
now that the Radcliffe
Institute took over the Harvard.
You may know that Radcliffe
was founded as the Harvard
Annex in 1879 and chartered
as Radcliffe in 1894.
It merged with Harvard in 1999.
From 1963 to 1976, just
before Nancy graduated,
the Harvard diplomas were signed
by both Radcliffe and Harvard.
My diploma is more valuable
than yours, Rennie,
because I have two presidents
who signed my diploma
and you only have one.
That's true.
That's true.
Well, I get a lot of
kidding from my wife who
was a Radcliffe graduate.
I always said she was
the magna cum laude
and I was the laude
[? a ?] cumma.
In any case we will--
After the report
to the alumni, we
will sing the
Radcliffe alma mater,
"Radcliffe, Now We
Rise to Greet Thee."
And following that, we will
have the principal commencement
address.
It will be given by
Michael Bloomberg,
the former mayor
of New York City.
Prior to that, he founded
Bloomberg Communications,
which is a global
communications firm.
Since leaving the mayor
office in New York City,
he runs Bloomberg Philanthropies
and he's the UN special envoy
for cities and climate change.
He's also done work
to try to increase
gun control in
the United States.
So we're all looking forward
to Michael Bloomberg's address.
He graduated from Johns
Hopkins University
for his undergraduate degree,
and then he received an MBA
from Harvard Business
School in 1966.
And today he received
an honorary degree
of Doctor of Laws.
Yes, he's a local boy.
He was born in 1942, and raised
here, and lived in Medford.
And attended, as Nancy
said, Johns Hopkins
then the Harvard
Business School.
And he told us last night
when he was growing up
he wasn't much of a Red Sox fan,
but he was a rabid Celtics fan.
And when he went to games
in New York City or Boston,
where the New York Knicks
play the Boston Celtics,
he wouldn't cheer
for either team.
Well, we're glad to have him
here today to speak to us.
It'll be quite interesting.
We've had some interesting
speeches over the year.
I was looking over
the list of those
who have spoken
to us in the past,
and if I can find
it here, I thought
I might mention some of
the interesting things
that they've talked about.
While Rennie's
looking for his list,
we will finish the
afternoon exercises
with the singing of "Fair
Harvard," the Harvard
alma mater, composed by Samuel
Gilman of the class of 1811.
Rennie, do you realize that he
graduated more than 200 years
ago and we still sing two verses
of the song that he wrote?
It's interesting to note that
the song that he composed
read, "Fair Harvard thy
sons to the jubilee throne."
And there was a
lot of discussion
about this when Radcliffe
joined and merged with Harvard.
And the feeling was that
the verse should be changed.
And indeed it was changed
to "Fair Harvard, we
join in thy jubilee throne."
It's interesting to note that
Champ Lyons of the class of '62
was one of our
former HAA presidents
and a lawyer and judge in the
southern part of the country.
His recommendation was
that it would be called,
suggested it be, "Fair
Harvard, thy sibs,
to thy jubilee throne."
And that will be the end of
our commencement afternoon
exercises.
That will be the close of the
145th meeting of the Harvard
Alumni Association.
And we will reconvene
then next year
on May 26, 2015 for the
145th meeting of the Alumni
Association.
I mentioned that Michael
Bloomberg, the former mayor
of New York City, received the
Doctor of Laws this morning.
There were other honorary
degree recipients today.
The first honorary degree that
Harvard awarded was in 1753.
That was more than 100 years
after Harvard was founded.
The first honorary
degree in 1753
went to Benjamin Franklin
for his work on electricity.
He was the most famous
American scientist
and one of the most
famous scientists
in the world in his day.
And just think, Rennie,
now we think of him
as a patriot and a politician
rather than a scientist.
The other honorary degree
recipients this morning
were Isabel Allende, a Doctor
of Arts for the writing
that she had done,
including House of Spirits.
George Herbert Walker Bush,
former president of the United
States, received a
Doctor of Laws degree.
Aretha Franklin, the
singer, the jazz singer,
received a Doctor
of Arts degree.
Patricia King, the
lawyer, ethicist,
and Georgetown
University Law professor,
received a Doctor of Laws.
Peter Raven, who's active in
biodiversity and biology work,
received a Doctor of Science.
Seymour Slive, the
great art historian,
received a Doctor of Arts.
And finally, the
economist Joseph Stieglitz
received a Doctor a Law degree.
We will see some of the honorary
degree recipients on stage
this afternoon, and
we will point them out
as they come up the aisle.
I commented on the
fact that we've
had some interesting speakers
at our afternoon ceremonies.
You never know quite what
you're going to hear.
Some of them are
better than others.
But looking back
over the years, I
remember John
Lithgow in 2005, who
said, "Be creative, be
useful, or be practical and be
generous."
And he had a book
that he had written
at that point called Mahalia
Mouse Goes to College.
And I think, as I recall
it, he read the book,
and it's a children's book.
And he dedicated
all the proceeds
to the class of 2005
that graduated that year.
J. K. Rowling spoke at the
1999 afternoon exercises,
noted that the thought
of giving the address
made her lose weight,
so she considered
that the event was
a win-win situation.
I remember she
spoke about failure,
and I thought it was so brave
to get in front of the 35,000
people here in Tercentenary
Theatre and talk about failure
and what it is like to fail.
Exactly.
Last year I didn't have a chance
to note that in the morning
exercises, Mike Shinagel,
who had been head
of continuing ed
for years, retired.
And at the time, he noted that
he was the lame duck professor
who presented his graduates
for their degrees.
And it reminded me of
the wonderful story
that Mike tells of the fact
that when he and his wife
were the house masters,
or head of the house
or whatever they're called
now, of Quincy house--
Quincy House apparently
has a roof garden,
and Mr. and Mrs.
Mallard Duck took up
residence in the garden.
And Mr. Mallard Duck
left, but Mrs. Mallard
stayed and laid seven eggs.
And Mike's comment
was, "it shows you
to what lengths a
determined mother
will go to get her
children into Harvard."
It's been an interesting
year here in Harvard Square.
There have been a number
of personnel changes.
Coming up, Rakesh
Khurana, professor
of sociology and Harvard
Business School professor,
will become the next dean of
Harvard College on July 1.
He and his wife are also
co-masters of Cabot House.
He's someone who's
dedicated to improving
the lives of undergraduates.
And so we congratulate Professor
Khurana on his appointment
and we look forward
to his service
as dean of Harvard College.
Our own Jack Reardon, Executive
Director of the Harvard Alumni
Association for 20 years,
will be stepping down
from that post as
of the end of June.
And Jack will
continue his service
to Harvard in various
ways, including
his work with the
athletic department.
He's the former
director of athletics.
As well as continue to work
on the development side.
We will miss Jack.
He's from the great
class of 1960,
and he has really brought
the Alumni Association
to its current status
as a global community
of more than 350,000
of Harvard alumni.
We just saw on the
screen a minute
or two ago-- you may
have seen the gentleman
having his picture taken
rubbing the toe of John Harvard.
There it is.
One of the activities that
has gone by, of course,
is that in the old
days, when anybody
went by John, the
undergraduates and graduates,
everybody tipped
their hat to him.
Now they rub the toe, and it's
supposed to bring good luck.
So if you ever come
to Harvard Yard
and you look at
John Harvard's toe,
you realize it is completely
polished bronze because of all
the people who've
been touching it.
Imagine what the statute would
look like if the entire statute
where that brightly
colored bronze.
And what you're
seeing there-- there
is my classmate Alan Howl.
And there is my good wife, I
think, somewhere in the group
there.
It's nice to know
they're seated.
The great class of 1955.
1955.
And I was going to note that,
of course, if you come and see
the John Harvard statue, you
should realize it's often
called the Statue of Three Lies,
because the information on it
and the picture you just
of John Harvard's head--
that's not John Harvard.
Nobody knows what
he looked like.
Name is Sherman Hoar,
used by Donald Chester
French as the model for it.
And you'll also note that it
gives the date on it as 1636.
And of course that's not the
date that Harvard was formed.
It was formed in 1632.
And I'm blanking
on the third one,
but I think that it
was not in Cambridge.
It was Newtown.
That's the third one if
I remember correctly.
But anyway, there are three
lies connected with it.
And we hope that everybody who's
rubbing the foot at this time
is at least having
some good luck,
and perhaps we
rubbed it yesterday
to get the good weather, Nancy.
One of the things I love
about Harvard commencement
is we are in the actual
place where commencement
have been celebrated since 1642.
In the early years of college,
the elders of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony who
founded the college
to train ministers
for the colony,
they were concerned that the
college wouldn't survive.
And so they would come
en masse from Boston
to celebrate, listen to the
orations of the graduates,
and celebrate.
And the next year they invited
the alumni and the following
year.
So our alumni tradition
dates actually from 1643,
and it has always happened
right here on this site.
There are several
traditions that date
from the 17th and 18th
century, including that beer
is served free in the old
yard on commencement day.
So this morning as I was
walking through the yard,
I saw the trucks being
unloaded with kegs of beer.
So if you're ever in the Boston
area on commencement day,
you can come during
lunch and you
will be offered a glass of beer.
There's another tradition.
Rennie, you and I both
live here in Cambridge.
And it is in fact in
the charter of Harvard
that Cambridge residents
can graze their sheep
in Harvard Yard.
So one year I would
like to bring my sheep,
if I ever have any, into
Harvard Yard so they can graze
and enjoy the commencement
festivities, as well.
In the 18th century,
there would sometimes
be circus animals,
including elephants,
and men dressed up as mermaids.
And I can just imagine
seeing elephants and mermaids
on Harvard Yard.
Unfortunately, we won't see
any of those characters today.
Probably not.
Probably not.
During lunch, there was
a number of the graduates
with their mortar boards on.
And the discussion came
up as to whether you
put your tassel on the
left and then moved it over
to the right, which always comes
up at commencement whether it
be at college like Harvard here
or high schools and so forth.
And one year a graduate
wore a ponytail
and told those around him,
remind me when I graduate
and I'll flip my pony
tail from left to right.
A nice sentiment, but there
is no meaning attached to
whether the tassel
drapes right or left.
Otherwise, an expert in such
matters has noted, quote,
"a gust of wind could change
your academic standing
in a moment."
Thursday is our commencement
day here at Harvard, so not
only the undergraduates
but the graduates
of all the professional schools
are with us in the morning
and in the afternoon for
the afternoon exercises.
Wednesdays of
graduation week are
what we call Class Day, where
each of the individual schools
invites a speaker.
So yesterday, Sheryl Sandberg,
Chief Operating Officer
of Facebook, and graduate
of Harvard College '91,
Harvard Business School '95,
addressed the senior class.
At the Kennedy School,
Samantha Power,
who has a JD from Harvard,
a law degree from Harvard,
class of 1999, who is currently
the US Ambassador to the United
Nations and a former professor
at the Kennedy School--
she spoke to the Kennedy
School graduates.
The medical school
invited Vivek Murthy, who
is the current nominee to be the
US Surgeon General and founder
of Doctors for
America, addressed
the medical and dental
school graduates.
At the business
school, Salman Khan,
who is the founder of the
first free online education
Khan Academy addressed
the MBA graduates.
At the School of Public
Health, Thomas Friedan,
who's the director of the
Center for Disease Control,
talked to the graduates.
At the Graduate
School of Design,
Michael Van Valkenburgh,
the professor
of landscape architecture spoke.
At the law school,
Preet Bharara,
who overseas investigation
and litigation
of criminal and
civil cases, was one
of the speakers, along
with Mindy Kaling, who's
a writer and producer known for
playing Kelly Kapoor on the NBC
sitcom "The Office."
Graduate School
of Education were
addressed by Michael Johnston,
who's a Colorado State
senator and a graduate
of the ed school.
And at the divinity
school, Charles Hallisey,
who is a lecturer on Buddhist
literature, gave the address.
So it's always a
busy couple of days.
Wednesday is Class Day where
each school individually
celebrates.
And today is the day for the
university-wide celebration.
We're expecting probably
20,000 people today
here in Harvard Yard to
hear Michael Bloomberg.
The yard can seat
as many as 35,000.
And I remember for the Bill
Gates and J. K. Rowling,
we had 35,000,
standing room only.
Not sure we'll quite reach
that, but we should easily
have 20,000 people
here with us today.
Well, it won't be as
crowded in the afternoon.
Mornings fill up,
and we often say
it's an event for the 35,000
people and 27,000 seats,
which makes it
somewhat difficult.
But the atmosphere is such
that the university has never
made any effort to
accommodate all of the parents
and so forth, which is difficult
for them in the morning.
But to ever consider moving
it down to the stadium
where Class Day exercises
in the old days were held
has never been considered.
I think part of it is
because we're lucky enough
to have a lot of
good, nice trees
that are well taken
care of up here
that give us a
pretty good shade.
And not too many trees,
too, so the people
can't see around them.
Years ago, back in 2004,
because of the crowds
and because it's
difficult to see around
some of the trees and
things, the university put
in the first of its LED screens.
And we had two of
them at that time.
I think we now have,
one, two, at least four
with an additional one put
up in the old yard where
the general alumni
spread is, which
helped to take care of
those who couldn't find
a seat within the
stadium itself.
So they have been a great help.
Not only do you see them,
but because you can read
what's being said if
you can't hear it,
which you generally can't.
You're seeing a lot
of interesting hats
as we go around here.
And Nancy, I'm sure, could
tell you more about that hats,
but I can remember having
served on the first committee
about women's wear.
And in the old days,
women wore all white.
It was dictated
they all wore white.
Now, as I understand
it, that's not something
that every good-looking
woman has in their wardrobe.
So we had quite a
committee put together,
because it was white
with a red sash.
The red sash was attached with
a carnation at the bottom,
and in some cases, a
very [INAUDIBLE] hat
that was just awful.
And we had a meeting on this,
and there was a lot of venting.
In fact, at the
meeting-- it took place,
I think, at one of
the HAA meetings
in the Commonwealth HAA,
the Commonwealth office
of the Harvard Club of Boston.
And Myra Mayman,
who at that time
was the head of the arts,
which Jack Megan now is,
Myra got quite excited about
this and got going on it.
And the alarm went off.
The fire alarm went off, and
we had to vacate the building.
But we then changed the ruling
to that you could either
wear black or white, but
you couldn't wear both
because then you'd look like
the Harvard dining services.
Rennie, now we see the
stage is filling up
with the 25th reunion class,
as well as the honorary degree
recipients and the
dignitaries, our speakers
for this afternoon.
So I think in a few minutes,
we will be starting.
You see the banners
in the trees.
Each of the banners represents
one school of Harvard
and also the Harvard
undergraduate houses.
Undergraduates at Harvard
don't live in dormitories.
They live in what are
called the houses,
and each house has its symbol.
Each house has
its co-masters who
really organize the
administrative lives
of the students.
Sophomores, juniors, and
seniors live in the houses,
and freshman all
live in Harvard Yard.
So there you can see
a view of the crowd
that we are seeing from here,
some of the estimated 20,000
people who will be here today.
And now I believe we're
looking at the stage, which
is-- yes, there on the right,
you see Alan Garber, class
of 1977, who is our provost.
He is sitting, waiting for
the ceremonies to begin.
The woman on the left
in the white jacket
is Katie Lapp, the
executive vice president
of the university
who is in charge
of all of the administrative
aspects of the university.
And you'll see other of the
dignitaries there on the stage.
Many people are still standing,
waiting for the procession
to conclude.
Here comes the president's
procession up the center aisle.
So as the president's
procession comes to the stage,
we will begin our
afternoon program.
What we see in the lead
there is the Chief Marshal
and his aides.
That's A-I-D-E-S. In the
morning, they are A-I-D-S,
and we have to
get that straight.
The Chief Marshal is the
one with the red-- looks
like a red ribbon or a red
corsage, on the left side.
And there is the bell signaling
the beginning of the afternoon
program.
So as soon as the
president and fellows--
you'll see the sign there for
the president and fellows.
You see--
There's the president coming in.
--President Drew Faust on the
right with her white jacket
with dark trim.
And on the left,
in the middle you
see Jack Reardon, the Executive
Director of the Alumni
Association, class of
1960, who's stepping down.
And to the left of the
screen is Kate Gellert,
who's the current president of
the Harvard Alumni Association.
Behind them are the directors
of the Alumni Association,
former directors, current
directors, and members
of various committees
that have served
in the Alumni Association.
And you can hear the bell
from Memorial Church signaling
the beginning of the
afternoon program.
That's a signal for people
to take their seats.
And we will continue to talk
until Kate Gellert opens
the meeting with the
pounding of her gavel.
We hear from time to
time the music coming up
from University Hall.
The stage next to the east
side of the University Hall
was built for the band in 2001.
There we see the Dean of
Faculty of Arts and Science,
Michael Smith.
And there we see the
medalists that we mentioned,
Anand Mahindra, Emily Pulitzer.
And normally Louis Newell
would be there as well,
but unfortunately he wasn't
able to do be there today.
For a long time, it was
difficult to figure out
who was who, especially if
they didn't have a name tag.
Now, with the signs,
it's very helpful
because we can line
people up behind the signs
and make sure that
everybody's there.
Not everybody wants
to be in parading.
As I said, we don't see too
many of the undergraduates who
have been down at their
houses getting their diplomas.
There's President Faust
with, to her left,
Jim Rothenberg, the current
treasurer of the university.
He will be stepping down from
that post as of July 1 to be
replaced by Paul Finnegan,
who's the class of '75, MBA '82.
Paul is the former president of
the Harvard Alumni Association.
There is a good
view of the crowd.
So I would say we're
about half full.
What happens is the
graduates have all
gone somewhere back to
their schools for lunch,
and as the afternoon wears
on, more and more of them
will be coming to hear
Michael Bloomberg speak.
So we will see the chairs fill
up as the afternoon progresses.
There's a good
view of the stage.
The podium is to the
right of your screen,
where you see the flowers.
And you see the dignitaries,
the overseers, the president
and fellows, the honorary
degree recipients
on the stage starting
to take their seats
so we can begin our program.
Most of the older classes
have now been seated.
Class of '54 is having
their 60th reunion.
That's Ted Kennedy's
class, John Calder's class,
and John Updike.
And I should note that John
Updike-- Houghton Library has
a display of Updike's
special exhibit,
from 1950 to 1954
of his writings,
which he gave to the
Houghton Library.
There is Kate Gellert,
our president,
the woman in the white dress
who has just taken her seat.
She's getting ready
for the afternoon.
We have quite a crew whose job
both morning and afternoon--
in the morning, the seats are
all done by the university.
In the afternoon, we have a
crew from the Happy Committee
that helps to set up the
seating for those on the podium.
The older classes sit on the
far left, as we have, as I said,
the bigger tent now than
in the old days and one
that doesn't leak.
Fortunately, we don't have
to worry about the [? rain ?]
plants, so we don't
even mention it.
And there we have a good view
of the podium with the flowers.
That's where the speakers
will be addressing the crowd.
And you can see the cage
where the different cameras
are located.
There's a good view of the
flowers in front of the podium.
So, Rennie, we're getting a
little bit of a late start.
We like to start by about
2:30, so right now we're
about seven minutes
behind schedule.
Normally, commencement ends at
somewhere between 4:00 and 4:15
PM.
We'll see if we can keep
to that schedule today.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Honored guests, fellow alumni,
family and friends, my mom
and dad, it's wonderful
to see you all here.
Welcome to the 145th annual
meeting of the Harvard Alumni
Association.
I am Kate Gellert, member of
the college class of 1993.
As the 135th president of the
Harvard Alumni Association,
the HAA for short,
and in accordance
with the tradition set by our
very first HAA president, John
Quincy Adams, I raise this gavel
and call this meeting to order.
This morning after
receiving their degrees
from the college and
the graduate schools,
6,500 new alumni
joined our ranks.
All graduates automatically
become lifelong members
of the HAA, with the many
privileges and resources
we hope to help you discover
in the coming years.
Congratulations, and welcome
to an astounding community
made only richer by
your presence among us.
I also want to congratulate
your parents, your families,
and friends, faculty, and
staff across the university,
the people who have
believed in you
and supported you throughout
your time at Harvard,
and those that are
not with us here today
but who would be
very proud and who
are very much here
with us in spirit.
When the Harvard
Alumni Association
was founded in 1840, there
were no more than 10,000 living
alumni.
Today, you have joined over
320,000 Harvard alumni,
including 17% living
outside of the United States
in 189 countries.
We want to welcome you,
and we want to celebrate.
So please turn in your
program and join me
in singing "Gaudeamus
Igitur," or in English,
"So Let Us Rejoice."
Why did we just sing
that song in Latin?
Why am I wearing a hat?
And just what does
the Happy Committee
for the Observance
of Commencement do?
Today is a celebration of
Harvard's most enduring
traditions.
We will end this
afternoon singing
our alma mater, "Fair Harvard."
In the second line
of the song, it
will talk about the pageantry
that has unfolded today,
referring to these
festival rights.
Some of you in the
audience are participating
in these festive rights
for the first time.
Some people are here
today for the first time
since they graduated.
And some come back every year.
I was curious.
What did commencement
look like 50 years ago?
Are we still flying
the same banners,
singing the same songs?
I did some research
about this and went
where all good researchers go,
to the archives of The Crimson,
where I found an article dated
Commencement Day, June 11,
1964.
And I quote, "Aside
from Thanksgiving,
the commencement pageantry
which will gradually
unravel in the yard this
morning is America's oldest
continuous festival.
By its forthright
uniqueness, it is also
one of the most enduring
signs of everlasting Harvard."
Hopefully, you, like me,
are proud of our traditions.
And I am honored
through the HAA to have
been the custodian of
them this past year.
In the spirit of
an annual meeting,
I feel obliged to report on some
of the activities of the HAA.
As the university launched
the Harvard Campaign,
the HAA focused on how our
alumni connect, with each other
and with the university.
Knowing that our alumni
desire intellectual content,
we launched HarvardX for
alumni, a survey course
of Harvard's offerings
on the EdX platform.
Wanting to connect alumni with
campus and student life today,
we launched a series called
Your Harvard, in which President
Faust shares her vision for
the future of the university.
Hundreds of alumni attended
in London, Los Angeles,
and New York.
Mark your calendars
for the series dates
in Dallas, Seattle,
and Chicago next year.
Recognizing the unique
reach of our club network,
we held regional
conferences in Europe,
South America, Asia, as
well as here in Cambridge,
to connect our volunteers with
university leadership, faculty,
and staff.
Throughout my travels
this year, one theme
emerged over and over.
Attending Harvard, no
matter what school,
was a transformative experience.
When our alumni talk
about their time here,
they talk about
being challenged,
about looking
differently at the world,
about making lifelong
friends, and about learning
what is possible
to achieve in life.
The role of the HAA is not only
to keep our alumni connected
to the traditions of Harvard,
but also to keep people,
near or far away,
days or decades
removed, connected to
the vibrant university
life that transformed them.
It has been a great,
really great privilege
and also pleasure to have served
in this role as the trustee
of great traditions,
as well as laying plans
to shape the future.
Thank you.
Now, in a most humbling
and inspiring tradition,
we recognize the
two senior alumni
who led the alumni
parade this afternoon.
From the Radcliffe
class of 1937,
Lillian Sugarman, who
turned 98 last year.
And from the Harvard class
of 1939, Robert Rothschild,
who celebrated his 95th
birthday this past January.
Thank you for leading
our alumni parade.
It is an honor to
celebrate you today.
And now, it is my
privilege to present
a member of the class of 1989,
elected by his classmates
to serve as Chief Marshal
on the occasion of this,
their 25th reunion.
After this year's Chief
Marshal graduated,
he helped start
Teach for America,
along with a number
of other Harvard folk.
For the past nine
years, he has led
the Knowledge Is Power
Program Foundation, which
oversees the national network
of KIPP public charter schools.
Under his tenure, KIPP
has tripled in size,
now serving more than 50,000
students across the country.
In communities were roughly
half of the students drop out
of high school, KIPP
is proving that it
doesn't have to be this way.
Among KIPP students, 93%
graduate high school and 83%
go on to college.
Today we recognize
a fellow alumnus
who has committed his
life to helping students
succeed despite great obstacles.
Ladies and gentlemen, Chief
Marshal Richard Barth.
And will the entire 25th
reunion class seated on stage
this afternoon please
stand and be recognized?
On June 30, I will, with some
reluctance and some relief,
turn over the gavel to one
of the alumni association's
most enthusiastic supporters.
A member of the
college class of 1980
and business school
class of 1984,
Cynthia Torres has
given generously
of her time and
energy from coast
to coast and indeed
around the world.
Hailing from
Southern California,
she has led the
local club there,
as well as being
active in career
mentoring for current students.
I am excited for
Cynthia, because I
am sure she has no
idea just how much fun
is in store for her next year.
I know I leave the
HAA in great hands.
Ms. President-elect Cynthia
Torres, will you please stand?
Let me also recognize a
distinguished alumnus who
will step down this June after
18 years of consecutive service
on Harvard's governing
boards, six as an overseer,
12 as a member of
the corporation,
and the last four as the
corporation's senior fellow.
Please join me in
applauding and thanking
an extraordinary leader
in Harvard's governance
over the past two decades,
Robert Reischauer.
Next, it is my
pleasure to announce
the results of this
spring's elections
for Harvard's board of
overseers and the elected
directors of the Harvard
Alumni Association.
We are grateful to the entire
slate for their willingness
to be of service to the
governance of Harvard.
Additionally, thanks to all
you who voted and participated.
Please hold your applause until
all the names in each category
are announced.
Five individuals
have been elected
to the board of overseers
to serve for six years each.
They are-- Michael Brown,
AB '83, JD '88, of Boston,
Massachusetts; James Hildreth,
AB '79 of Davis, California;
Jane Lubchenko, PhD '75,
of Corvallis, Oregon;
Michael Lynton, AB '82, MBA
'87, of Los Angeles, California;
Lesley Friedman
Rosenthal, AB '86, JD '89,
of New York, New York.
The following six
alumni have been
elected as directors of the
Harvard Alumni Association
to serve for three years each.
They are-- Henry Biggs, AB
'86, of Saint Louis, Missouri;
Raphael Bostic, AB '87, of
Los Angeles, California;
Margaret J. [? Bratz ?], EdM
'93, EdD '99, of Chicago,
Illinois; Leea Nash Bridgeman,
AB '02, MBA '05, of Louisville,
Kentucky; Jessica Gelman, AB
'97, MBA '02, of Wellesley,
Massachusetts; and Vanessa Liu,
AB '96, JD '03, of New York,
New York.
Congratulations,
and we look forward
to working with
you in continuing
to shape Harvard's future.
At this annual meeting, the
Harvard Alumni Association
confers the Harvard
Medal, our highest honor
for extraordinary service
to the university.
We recognize those
whose devotion
has been exemplary
and inspirational.
President Faust will
read the citations.
Will each medalist please stand
as your name is announced?
Anand Mahindra, AB '77,
MBA '81, distinguished
graduate of Harvard College
and Harvard Business School,
you have served the university
on several continents
with deep devotion and insight,
affirming the vital importance
of the humanities
while advancing
interdisciplinary studies within
a broad liberal arts education.
Anand.
Our next medalist,
Louis Newell, is not
able to be here with us to
receive his Harvard Medal
today.
Although we will hold a
special medal presentation
at a later date, I want to
share his citation with you.
J. Louis Newell, AB
'57, whether cheering
from the stands at the stadium
or chairing the committee
charged with making
commencement happy,
you stand always ready
to answer Harvard's call
as a stalwart leader of your
class of the Harvard College
Fund, the Harvard
Club of Boston,
and the Harvard Varsity Club.
Let us applaud Louis Newell.
Emily Rauh Pulitzer, AM
'63, as Harvard Overseer,
expert in modern and
contemporary art,
and devoted friend of
Harvard's art museums,
you have elevated the university
and its embrace of creativity
through your profound belief in
the power of art and education
to transform how we
look at the world.
I'm now pleased to
present a special Harvard
Medal to John P.
Reardon, Jr., AB 1960.
How you doing?
Want a speech?
I'm hoping we didn't
give him a heart attack.
You're OK?
OK.
From admissions to
athletics to alumni affairs,
you have shaped the
Harvard we know and love,
touching and changing
countless lives
through your skillful
leadership and sage
counsel, your
inpeccable judgment,
and inimitable way with people.
The whole Harvard family
salutes you and thanks you.
I hope you can all
appreciate how much fun it
was to keep a secret
from the man who
knows everything about Harvard.
And now, we will
actually hear from Jack
in a video about why he
has dedicated and continues
to dedicate his life to Harvard.
Harvard's been from the
beginning very important
in my life.
I was surrounded by classmates
who, in the dining halls,
in my living
situation, were always
wanting to discuss
issues, issues in ways
sometimes that I had never
given a lot of consideration.
Plus faculty, professors,
who were really great.
Professor Brzezinski
was my sophomore tutor.
I remember at the
beginning of the year
I was late to a meeting and
he said to me, I'm busy, too.
If you can't be on time,
don't bother to come.
And I got the point.
That helped me to
be on time places.
I think opening opportunities
to as many people who
can take advantage of
what's here as possible
is a great thing.
I had a good example
of a person years
ago who I recruited who was
a very good football player,
listed in the Parade High School
All-Americans as a top player.
We looked at those
kids one year,
and this is the one person
who looked like maybe they
could do Harvard work.
Basically, he was an orphan.
He was probably going to
go to Washington or Oregon.
Forget him.
I said, forget him?
Let's get him back here.
He came.
He played three
years of football.
He went to work.
Very, very successful guy.
And more recently, he
provided some money
for the admissions office
to spend finding kids
that you otherwise
wouldn't find.
I think there are opportunities
like never before.
I think Harvard was very
much a local institution
50 years ago compared
to the way it is today.
In the last 50 years,
throughout the university
the diversity is huge,
tremendous change.
It's just a very different
group of people here today
than were here 50 years ago.
We have great resources--
libraries, labs, and so forth--
but the people that are drawn
here as students, and faculty,
and staff want to
work with each other.
And whatever they do, they
want to do it really well.
I was lucky to meet
very special people
through being at Harvard.
And they certainly made
a difference to Harvard,
and they made a
difference for my thinking
about how to do things in life.
Most alumni have had
ultimately good experiences.
They want to see
the place strong
and want to support it in ways
that can help it be strong.
It also suggests that overall
people had good experiences
that they think have made a
difference in their lives,
and they want to see the
strength of the place continue.
The one thing that is very
special, and a lot of people
don't know it, but Harvard
is a very human place.
You think of the bricks
and the concrete,
but I think they do
support one another.
I think it's an unusually
human place where
people do care
about one another.
It's been a spectacular
place to spend my life.
I would like to
congratulate Jack
and all of the
Harvard Medalists.
Except for Jack, one of the best
things I got to do this year
was to call each winner
and share the exciting news
with them.
So we are all citizens
of this great university.
And our medalists today
are representative
of the incredible dedication
of our alumni to Harvard.
They are joined by a
core of tens of thousands
of alumni who give of
their time and their talent
to support Harvard.
Our 234 Harvard clubs and
shared interest groups
are run by volunteers.
Over 15,000 alumni interview
applicants to Harvard College
each year.
Nearly 10,000 alumni and guests
return to campus university
wide to attend
volunteer-run reunions.
So as we celebrate
today, we also
give thanks to our alumni and
friends, students and parents,
faculty and staff.
Thank you.
Thank you for all that you
do for this great university.
To all the volunteers committed
to connecting Harvard's alumni,
thank you for all that you have
done this year and all that you
will continue to do.
This week, thousands of
alumni returned to campus
in a great show of commitment
to the community of Harvard.
Many come back for Harvard
and Radcliffe college reunions
to reconnect with each other, to
experience the campus of today,
and they show their support
through impressive levels
of giving.
Under the leadership
of many volunteers,
including college reunion
committees and the class
secretaries and
treasurers, we've
drawn more than 6,500 alumni and
guests to Cambridge this week
and helped generate nearly
5,400 gifts as of May 28.
Today, we take a moment to
recognize some particularly
impressive college
reunion efforts.
The class of 1964 celebrating
their 50th reunion
is led by reunion programs
co-chairs Thomas Brome
and Harriet Todd and reunion
campaign committee co-chairs
Tom Brome, C. Boyden Gray, Tom
Stevenson, and Jim Schwartz.
The class of '64 has 800
classmates and guests
in attendance and has
raised more than $28 million
to date from almost
50% of their class.
Would all of you please stand?
And now to this
year's 25th reunion.
The class of 1989, under the
leadership reunion program
co-chairs Jeff Behrens, Carolyn
Magnani, and Lori Rutter.
And with over a dozen reunion
campaign co-chairs-- and yes,
I'm going to read them--
Peter Chung, Dave Goldberg,
Ken Griffin, Patrick Healy,
David Heller, Jerry Jordan,
[? Amis ?] [? Marone, ?] John
Moon, Kristin Williams Mugford,
Scott Nathan, Valerie
Peltier, Charlie Ryan,
and Sophocles Zoullas.
The class of 1989 has
generated impressive attendance
and giving with 1,900 classmates
and guests in attendance
and an astonishing record--
an astonishing record--
of nearly $180 million
dollars contributed to date.
would all of you please stand?
Please stand and be recognized.
Included in the class of
1989's incredible total
is the transformative gift
Ken Griffin made to support
financial aid, the
largest individual gift
in the college's history.
His generosity ensures that
future generations of Harvard
students will be able to
come to Cambridge regardless
of their financial background.
And I would like to give
him special recognition.
One more person needs
special recognition.
A former president of the
HAA and former co-chair
of the Harvard College Fund,
he helped lead his class
to set a new 60th
reunion record.
Would Charlie Egan
of the class of 1954
please stand and be recognized?
And now would all the members
of the Harvard College Reunion
Program Committees and
Reunion Campaign Committees
please stand and be recognized?
Thank you for your hard work
on behalf of the college.
And now, a final word
of thanks to our newest
alumni, the class of 2014.
The Senior Class Committee,
which throughout the year
has brought their class
together through over 20 events,
including Class Day yesterday,
is represented on stage today
by Jin Zhou and Christopher
Cleveland, the first
and second Class Marshals.
In addition, under
the leadership
of Arleen Chien, Preetha Hebbar,
Tara Lyons, Kavya Shankar,
and Joshua Zhang, 78%
of the class of 2014
contributed to
their senior gift.
Would the Marshals
Senior Gift co-chairs
please stand and be recognized?
Congratulations.
To all of you, our dedicated
citizens of Harvard,
we continue to be inspired
by your volunteerism
and philanthropy.
Thank you.
To celebrates these
amazing volunteers
and our entire alumni
community, please
join the Harvard University
Band and the commencement choir
in their performance
of "Harvardiana."
The band got to practice
that song a lot in Spokane
this winter.
Harvard's 21st president,
Charles W. Eliot,
in his inaugural address
145 years ago said,
quote, "The inertia of a massive
university is formidable.
A good past is
positively dangerous
if it makes us content
with the present
and thus unprepared
for the future."
Harvard's 28th president,
Drew Gilpin Faust,
has demonstrated
dynamic leadership
under which there
could be no inertia.
In the past seven
years, President Faust
has expanded financial aid to
improve access to a Harvard
education for students from
all economic backgrounds,
advocated for increased
federal funding
for scientific
research, broadened
the university's global reach,
raised the profile of the arts
on campus, and this past
fall, launched the Harvard
Campaign, an
ambitious fundraising
campaign to position
Harvard, in her words,
to seize an impatient future.
Please join me in welcoming the
Lincoln Professor of History,
Harvard's 28th president,
Drew Gilpin Faust.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Goodness.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you all, and good
afternoon, alumni, graduates,
families, friends,
honored guests.
For seven years now, it has been
my assignment and my privilege
to deliver an annual
report to our alumni
and to serve as the warm-up act
for our distinguished speaker.
Whether this is your
first opportunity
to be part of these
exercises or your 50th,
it's worth taking a minute
to soak in this place,
its sheltering trees,
its familiar buildings,
its enduring voices.
In 1936, this part
of Harvard Yard
was called Tercentenary
Theatre in recognition
of Harvard's 300th birthday.
It's a place where
giants have stood
and history has been made.
We were reminded this morning of
George Washington's adventures
here.
And from this stage in
1943, Winston Churchill
addressed an overflow
crowd that included
6,000 uniformed Harvard
students heading off to war.
He said that he hoped
the young recruits would
come to regard the British
soldiers and sailors they would
soon fight alongside as
their brothers in arms.
And he assured the audience that
we shall never tire nor weaken
but march with you to
establish the reign of justice
and of law.
Four years later
in this same place,
George Marshall introduced a
plan that aided reconstruction
across war-stricken Europe.
And he ended his speech
by asking, what is needed?
What best can be done?
What must be done?
Here in 1998, Nelson Mandela
addressed an audience of 25,000
and spoke of our shared future.
The greatest single challenge
facing our globalized world,
he said, is to combat and
eradicate its disparities.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first
female head of state in Africa,
stood here 13 years later
and encouraged graduates
to resist cynicism
and to be fearless.
Here on the terrible afternoon
of September 11, 2001,
we gathered under
a cloudless sky
to share our sadness, our
horror, and our disbelief.
And here just three
years ago we marked
Harvard's 375th
anniversary dancing
in the mud of a
torrential downpour.
Here, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
had celebrated Harvard's three
centuries of accomplishment
in a comparably soaking rain.
Here, J. K. Rowling
encouraged graduates
to think themselves into
other people's places.
And Conan O'Brien told them
that every failure is freeing.
Here, honorary degrees
have been presented
to Carl Jung, and Jean
Piaget, and Ellsworth Kelly,
and Georgia O'Keeffe,
Helen Keller,
and Martha Graham, Ravi Shankar,
and Leonard Bernstein, Joan
Dideon, and Philip
Roth, Eric Kandel,
and Elizabeth Blackburn, Bill
Gates, and Tim Berners-Lee.
I remember feeling
awed by that history
when I spoke here
at my installation
as Harvard's 28th
president and when
I reflected on what
has always seemed to me
the essence of a university,
that among society's
institutions it is uniquely
accountable to the past
and to the future.
Our accountability to the
past is all around us.
Behind me stands Memorial
Church, a monument
to Harvardians who gave
their lives at the Somme,
and [INAUDIBLE] and Verdun
during World War I. Dedicated
on Armistice Day in
1932, it represents
Harvard's long tradition
of commitment to service.
In front of me is
Widener Library,
a gift from a
bereaved mother, named
in honor of her son Harry who
perished aboard the Titanic,
a library built to
advance the learning
and discovery enabled by one
of the most diverse and broad
collections in the world.
Widener's 12 majestic
columns safeguard
texts and manuscripts,
some centuries old,
that are deployed
every day by scholars
to help us interpret and
reinterpret the past.
But this afternoon,
I would like to spend
a few minutes considering our
accountability to the future,
because these obligations must
be our compass to steer by,
our common purpose, and
our shared commitment.
What does Harvard-- what do
universities owe the future?
First, we owe the world answers.
Discovery is at the heart
of what universities do.
Universities engage
faculty and students
across a range of disciplines
in seeking solutions
to problems that may have
seemed unsolvable, endeavoring
to answer questions that
threaten to elude us.
The scientific research
undertaken today
at Harvard and tomorrow
by the students we educate
has the capacity to improve
human lives in ways virtually
unimaginable even
a generation ago.
In this past year alone,
Harvard researchers
have solved riddles related to
the treatment of Alzheimer's,
the cost-effective production
of malaria vaccine,
and the origins of the universe.
Harvard researchers
have proposed answers
to challenges as varied
as nuclear proliferation,
American competitiveness, and
governance of the internet.
We must continue to support
our answer seekers who
work at the crossroads of the
theoretical and the applied,
at the nexus of research, public
policy, and entrepreneurship.
Together they will
shape our future
and enhance our
understanding of the world.
Second, we owe the
world questions.
Just as questions yield answers,
answers yield questions.
Human beings may long for
certainty, but as Oliver
Wendell Holmes put it,
certainty generally is allusion,
and repose is not
the destiny of man.
Universities produce knowledge.
They must also produced doubt.
The pursuit of
truth is restless.
We search for answers not by
following prescribed paths
but by finding the
right questions,
by answering one question
with another question,
by nurturing a state of mind
that is flexible and alert,
dissatisfied and imaginative.
It's what universities
are designed to do.
In an essay in Harvard Magazine,
one of today's graduates,
Cherone Dugan,
wrote about seeking
what she called an
education of questions.
I hope we have indeed
given her that.
Questions are the
foundation for progress,
for ensuring that
the world transcends
where we are now,
what we know now.
And questions are
also the foundation
for a third obligation that we
as universities owe the future.
We owe the future meaning.
Universities must
nurture the ability
to interpret, to make
critical judgments,
to dare to ask the biggest
questions, the ones that
reach well beyond the
immediate and the instrumental.
We must stimulate the
appetite for curiosity.
We find many of these
questions in the humanities.
What is good?
What is just?
How do we know what is true?
But we find them in
the sciences, as well.
Can there be any question more
profound, more fundamental,
than to ask about the
origins of the universe?
How did we get here?
Questions like these
can be unsettling
and they can make universities
unsettling places,
but that, too, is
an essential part
of what we owe the future-- the
promise to combat complacency,
to challenge the
present in order
to prepare for what is to come,
to shape the present in service
of an uncertain and
yet impatient future.
We owe the future answers.
We owe the future questions.
We owe the future meaning.
The Harvard Campaign
launched last September
will help us fulfill these
obligations and pay our debt
to the future, just as the
gifts of previous generations
anchor us here today.
As today's ceremonies
so powerfully remind us,
we also owe the future
the men and women
who are prepared to ask
questions and seek answers
and search for meaning
for decades to come.
Today we send some
6,500 graduates
into the world to be teachers
and lawyers, scientists
and physicians, poets and
planners and public servants,
and as our speaker this
morning reminded us,
to be in their own
ways revolutionaries,
ready to take on everything
from water scarcity
to virtual currency
to community policing.
We must continue to
invest in financial aid
to attract and support
the talented students who
can build our future.
And also, we must invest
in supporting the teaching
and learning that
ensures the fullest
development of their
capacities in a changing world.
If we fulfill our
obligations, today's graduates
will have found the education
of questions Cherone described,
a place where, as she put it,
ceilings are made only of sky.
But look around you.
We're there.
This place is a theater
without walls, without a roof,
and without limits.
It's a place where extraordinary
individuals have preceded us,
a place that must encourage
our graduates of today
and all the years passed to
emulate those women and men,
to look skyward and to soar.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, President Faust.
There is no question that
we are fortunate to have you
as our leader.
Thank you, Kate.
To honor the contributions
of Radcliffe College and it's
alumni and to mark its
historical significance
for men and women alike,
please stand and join
in singing Radcliffe's
alma mater,
"Radcliffe, Now We
Rise to Greet Thee."
The words are in your program.
This afternoon's
commencement speaker
is known around the world.
If you work in finance, you
are aware of what a Bloomberg
Terminal is and the unique
color-coded keyboard that
comes with it.
If you live in or
near a city, you
probably follow mayoral politics
and have heard something
about the former mayor
of New York City.
And if you are here with an
interest in public health,
the arts, the
environment, or education,
then you know how his
philanthropic support
is focused around impact.
After growing up a little
over five miles from here
in Medford, Michael
Bloomberg graduated
from Johns Hopkins
in 1964 with a degree
in electrical engineering.
After college, he attended
Harvard Business School and in
1966 was hired by a Wall
Street firm, Solomon Brothers,
for an entry-level job.
He left in 1981 to found
Bloomberg LP, which
he led for 20 years.
In 2001, he ran for
mayor of New York
and was elected two months
after the 9/11 tragedy.
During his three
terms in office,
he focused on public health,
combating crime, gun control,
the environment, and
many other issues
important to New Yorkers.
Throughout his entire
career, Michael Bloomberg
has also been an
active philanthropist.
As a philanthropist,
Bloomberg has
been realistic
about how to tackle
large problems around the world.
In business, he has
shown that there
are many ways to
make a difference.
As mayor, he
understood that he is
responsible for
delivering results.
There is nobody better qualified
to address our alumni today
than Mr. Michael Bloomberg,
founder of Bloomberg LP,
108th mayor of New York
City, and philanthropist.
Thank you.
Thank you, Katie.
And thank you to President
Faust, and the Fellows
of Harvard College,
the Board of Overseers,
and all of the faculty,
alumni, and students
who have welcomed
me back to campus.
I am excited to be here,
not only to address
the distinguished graduates and
alumni at Harvard University's
363rd commencement,
but most importantly
to stand in the exact spot
where Oprah stood last year.
O-M-G.
Let me begin with the
first order of business.
Let's have a big round of
applause for the class of 2014.
They've earned it.
Now, excited as
these graduates are,
they are probably
even more exhausted
after the past few weeks.
And parents, I am not
referring to their final exams.
I'm talking about the Senior
Olympics, the Last Chance
Dance, and the booze cruise--
I mean the midnight cruise.
Anyways, this year has
been exciting on campus.
Harvard beat Yale for
the seventh straight time
in football.
The men's basketball team went
to the second round of the NCAA
tournament for the
second straight year.
And the men's squash team won
the national championship.
Who'd have thunk it?
Who'd have thunk it?
Harvard, an athletic powerhouse.
Pretty soon, Drew, they're going
to be asking whether you have
academics to go along with
your academic programs.
Now, my personal
connection to Harvard
began back in 1964
when I graduated
from Johns Hopkins in
Baltimore and matriculated here
at the B school.
You're probably asking
yourself, or maybe whispering
to the person next
to you, how did
he ever get into
Harvard Business School,
particularly since his stellar
academic record where he always
made the top half of
the class possible?
I have no idea.
The only people who were
more surprised than me
were my professors.
Anyways, here I am
back in Cambridge,
and I've noticed
a few things have
changed since I
was a student here.
Elsie's, a sandwich spot I
used to love near the square,
is now a burrito shop.
The Wursthaus, which had
great beer and sausage,
is now an artisanal
gastropub, whatever that is.
And the old Holyoke
Center is now
named the Smith Campus Center.
Don't you just hate it
when alumni put their names
all over everything?
I was thinking
about this morning
as I walked into
the Bloomberg Center
on the Harvard Business School
campus across the river.
But the good news
is, Harvard remains
what it was when I first
arrived on campus 50 years ago,
America's most
prestigious university.
And like other
great universities,
it lies at the heart of
the American experiment
in democracy.
Their purpose is not
only to advance knowledge
but to advance the
ideals of our nation.
Great universities
are places where
people of all backgrounds,
holding all beliefs,
pursuing all questions, can
come to study and debate
their ideas freely and openly.
And today I'd like to talk
to you about how important it
is for that freedom to exist
for everyone, no matter
how strongly we may disagree
with another's viewpoint.
Tolerance for other
people's ideas
and the freedom to
express your own
are inseparable values
at great universities.
Joined together, they
form a sacred trust
that holds the basis of
our democratic society.
But let me tell you,
that trust is perpetually
vulnerable to the tyrannical
tendencies of monarchs, mobs,
and majorities.
And lately we've seen those
tendencies manifest themselves
too often, both on college
campuses and in our society.
That's the bad news.
And unfortunately,
I think both Harvard
and my own city, New York, have
been witnesses to this trend.
First, for New York City.
Several years ago,
as you may remember,
some people tried to stop
the development of a mosque
a few blocks from the
World Trade Center site.
It was an emotional
issue, and polls
showed that 2/3
of Americans were
against a mosque
being built there.
Even the Anti-Defamation
League, widely regarded
as the country's most ardent
defender of religious freedom,
declared its opposition
to the project.
The opponents held rallies
and demonstrations.
They denounced the
developers, and they
demanded that city government
stop its construction.
That was their right, and
we protected their right
to protest.
But they could not
have been more wrong,
and we refused to cave
in to those demands.
The idea that government
would single out
a particular religion and
block its believers, and only
its believers, from
building a house of worship
in a particular area is
diametrically opposed
to the moral principles that
gave rise to our great nation
and the constitutional
protections that
have sustained it.
Our union of 50 states
rests on the union
of two values,
freedom and tolerance.
And it is that union of
values that the terrorists who
attacked us on September 11,
2001 and on April 15, 2013
found most threatening.
To them, we were
a godless country.
But in fact, there
is no country that
protects the core of every
faith and philosophy known
to humankind, free will,
more than the United
States of America.
And that protection,
however, rests
upon our constant vigilance.
We like to think that the
principle of separation
of church and state is settled.
It is not, and it never will be.
It's up to us to
guard it fiercely
and to ensure that
equality under the law
means equality under
the law for everyone.
If you want the freedom
to worship as you wish,
to speak as you wish, and
to marry whom you wish,
you must tolerate my freedom to
do so or not to do so, as well.
Now, what I do may offend you.
You may find my actions
immoral or unjust,
but attempting to restrict
my freedoms in ways
that you would not restrict your
own leads only to injustice.
We cannot deny others the rights
and privileges that we demand
for ourselves.
And that is true
in cities, and it
is no less true at universities
where the forces of repression
appear to be stronger
now, I think,
than they have been at
any time since the 1950s.
When I was growing up, US
Senator-- yes, you can applaud.
When I was growing up,
US Senator Joe McCarthy
was asking, are you now
or have you ever been?
He was attempting to
repress and criminalize
those who sympathized with an
economic system that was even
then failing.
McCarthy's Red Scare
destroyed thousands of lives,
but what was he so afraid of?
An idea, in this case
communism, that he and others
deemed dangerous?
But he was right
about one thing.
Ideas can be dangerous.
They can change society.
They can upend traditions.
They can start revolutions.
And that's why throughout
history, those in authority
have tried to repress
the ideas that
threaten their power, their
religion, their ideology,
or their reelection chances.
This was true for
Socrates and Galileo.
It was true for Nelson
Mandela and Vaclav Havel.
And it has been true for
Ai Weiwei, Pussy Riot,
and the kids who made the
"Happy" video in Iran.
Repressing free expression
is a natural human weakness,
and it is up to us to
fight it at every turn.
Intolerance of ideas, whether
liberal or conservative,
is antithetical to individual
rights and free societies.
And it is no less antithetical
to great universities
and first-rate scholarships.
Now, there is an idea floating
around college campuses,
including here at
Harvard, I think,
that scholars should be funded
only if their work conforms
to a particular view of justice.
There's a word for
that idea-- censorship.
And it is just a modern
form of McCarthyism.
Think about the irony.
In the 1950s, the right
wing was attempting
to repress left wing ideas.
Today on many
college campuses, it
is liberals trying to
repress conservative ideas,
even as conservative
faculty members
are at risk of becoming
an endangered species.
And that is probably
nowhere more true
than it is here
in the Ivy League.
In the 2012 presidential race,
according to federal-- yes,
thank you.
In the 2012 presidential race,
according to Federal Election
Commission data, 96% of
all campaign contributions
from Ivy League faculty and
employees went to Barack Obama.
96%.
There was more disagreement
among the old Soviet Politburo
than there was among
Ivy League donors.
And that statistic should
give us some pause.
And I say that as
someone who endorsed
President Obama for reelection.
Because let me
tell you something.
Neither party has a monopoly
on truth or God on its side.
When 96% of Ivy League
donors prefer one candidate
to another, you really have to
wonder whether the students are
being exposed to the
diversity of views
that a great university
should offer.
Diversity of gender, ethnicity,
and orientation is important,
but a university cannot be great
if it's faculty is politically
homogeneous.
In fact, the whole purpose
of-- in fact, the whole purpose
of granting tenure
to professors is
to ensure that they feel
free to conduct research
on ideas that run
afoul of university
politics and societal norms.
When tenure was
created, it mostly
protected liberals whose ideas
ran against conservative norms.
Today, if tenure is
going to continue,
it must also protect
conservatives
whose ideas run up
against liberal norms.
Otherwise, university
research and the professors
who conduct it will
lose credibility.
Great universities must not
become predictably partisan,
and a liberal arts
education must not
be an education in
the art of liberalism.
The role of universities is
not to promote an ideology.
It is to provide scholars and
students with a neutral forum
for researching
and debating issues
without tipping the
scales in one direction
or repressing unpopular views.
Requiring scholars and
commencement speakers,
for that matter, to conform
to certain political standards
undermines the whole
purpose of a university.
This spring it has been serving
to see a number of college
commencement speakers withdrawal
or have their invitations
rescinded after
protests from students
and, to me, shockingly
from senior faculty
and administrators who
should know better.
It happened at Brandeis,
Haverford, Rutgers, and Smith.
And last year, it happened at
Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins,
I'm sorry to say.
In each of these cases,
liberals silenced a voice,
and they denied an honorary
degree to individuals
that they deemed
politically objectionable.
This is an outrage, and we
must not let it continue.
If the university thinks twice
before inviting a commencement
speaker because of
his or her politics,
censorship and conformity,
the mortal enemies of freedom,
win out.
And sadly, it's not
just commencement season
when speakers are censored.
Last fall when I was
still in City Hall,
our police commissioner
was invited
to deliver a lecture at
another Ivy League institution,
but he was unable to do so
because students shouted him
down.
Isn't the purpose
of the university
to stir discussion,
not silence it?
What were the students
afraid of hearing?
And why did
administrators not step in
to prevent the mob
from silencing speech?
And did anyone consider that
it is morally and pedagogically
wrong to deprive other students
the chance to hear the speech?
Now, I'm sure all
of today's graduates
have read John Stuart
Mill's On Liberty,
but just let me read a
short passage from it.
Quote, "the particular evil
of silencing the expression
of an opinion is that it
is robbing the human race,
posterity, as well as the
existing generation, those
who dissent from
the opinion still
more than those who hold it."
He continued, "if
the opinion is right,
they are deprived
of the opportunity
of exchanging error for truth.
If wrong, they lose
what is almost as
great a benefit, the clear
perception and livelier
impression of truth produced
by its collision with error."
Now, Mill would
have been horrified
to learn of university
students silencing
the opinions of others.
He would have been even more
horrified that faculty members
were often part of the
commencement censorship
campaigns.
For tenured professors,
to silence speakers
whose views they
disagree with is really
the height of hypocrisy,
especially when those protests
happen in the
Northeast, the bastion
of self-professed
liberal tolerance.
Now, I'm glad to say
that Harvard has not
caved into these commencement
censorship challenges.
If it had, Colorado State
Senator Michael Johnston
would not have had the chance
to address the Education
School yesterday.
Some students called
on the administration
to rescind the
invitation to Johnston
because they opposed some
of his education policies,
but to their great credit,
President Faust and Dean Ryan
stood firm.
And as Dean Ryan
wrote to the students,
quote, "I have encountered
many people of good faith
who share my basic goals but
disagree with my views when
it comes to the question of
how best to improve education.
In my view, those differences
should be explored, debated,
challenged, and questioned, but
they should also be respected
and indeed celebrated."
He could not have
been more correct.
He could not have provided
a more valuable final lesson
to the class of 2014.
As a former chairman
at Johns Hopkins,
I strongly believe that a
university's obligation is not
to teach students what to
think but to teach students
how to think.
And that requires listening
to the other side,
weighing arguments
without prejudicing them,
and determining whether the
other side might actually
have made some fair points.
If the faculty fails
to do this, then it
is the responsibility
of the administration
and the governing body to step
in and make it a priority.
If they do not-- if students
graduate with ears and minds
closed, the
university has failed
both the students and society.
And if you want to
know where that leads,
look no further
than Washington DC.
Down in Washington, every major
question facing our country,
involving our security, our
economy, our environment,
and our health, is decided.
Yet the two parties
decide those questions
not by engaging with one
another but by trying
to shout each other down
and by trying to repress
and undermine the research
the counters their ideology.
The more our universities
emulate that model,
the worse off we
will be as a society.
And let me give
you a few examples.
For a decade, Congress
has barred the Centers
for Disease Control
from conducting
studies of gun violence.
And recently Congress also
placed that prohibition
on the National
Institute of Health.
You have to ask yourself,
what are they afraid of?
This year the Senate has delayed
a vote on President Obama's
nominee for Surgeon General,
Dr. Vivek Murthy, a Harvard
physician, because
he had the audacity
to say that gun violence
is a public health
crisis that should be tackled.
Th gall of him.
Let's get serious.
When 86 Americans are killed
with guns every single day
and shootings regularly occur
at our schools and universities,
including last week's
tragedy at Santa Barbara,
it would be almost
medical malpractice
to say anything else.
But in politics, as it is on
far too many college campuses,
people don't listen
to facts that
run counter to their ideology.
They fear them.
And nothing is more
frightening to them
than scientific evidence.
Earlier this year, the
state of South Carolina
adopted new science standards
for its public schools,
but the state
legislature blocked
any mention of
natural selection.
That is like teaching
economics without mentioning
supply and demand.
Once again, you have to ask,
what are they afraid of?
And the answer, of
course, is obvious.
Just as members of
Congress fear data
that undermines their
ideological beliefs,
these state legislators
feared scientific evidence
that undermines their
religious beliefs.
And if you want proof
of that, consider this.
An eight-year-old
girl in South Carolina
wrote to members of
the state legislature
urging them to make the woolly
mammoth the official state
fossil.
Legislators thought
it was a great idea,
because a woolly mammal fossil
was found in the state way
back in 1725.
But the state
Senate passed a bill
defining the woolly
mammoth as having been,
quote, "created on the sixth day
with the beasts of the field,"
unquote.
You can't make this stuff up.
Here in 21st century
America, the wall
between church and state
remains under attack,
but it's up to all of us
to man the barricades.
Unfortunately, the
same elected officials
who put ideology and religion
over data and science
when it comes to guns
and evolution, often
are the most unwilling to accept
the scientific data on climate
change.
Now, don't get me wrong.
Scientific skepticism
is healthy,
but there's a
world of difference
between scientific
skepticism that seeks out
more evidence and ideological
stubbornness that shuts it out.
Given the general attitude
of many elected officials
toward science, it's no wonder
the federal government has
abdicated its
responsibility to invest
in scientific
research, much of which
occurs at our universities.
Today federal spending on
research and development
as a percentage of
GNP is lower than it
has been in more
than 50 years, which
is allowing the rest of the
world to catch up and even
surpass the US in
scientific research.
The federal government
is flunking science,
just as many state
governments are.
But we must not
become a country that
turns its back on
science or on each other.
Now, I get back to
the class of 2014.
You graduates must
help lead the way.
On every issue, we must follow
the evidence where it leads
and listen to people
where they are.
If we do that, there is no
problem we cannot solve,
no gridlock we cannot break,
no compromise we cannot broker.
The more we exchange or embrace
a free exchange of ideas,
and the more we accept
that political diversity,
the healthy we are, the
stronger our society will be.
Now, I know this has not been
a traditional commencement
speech.
And in fact, it may keep me from
passing a dissertation defense
in the humanities department,
but there is no easy time
to say hard things.
Graduates, throughout
your lives,
do not be afraid of saying
what you believe is right,
no matter how
unpopular it may be,
especially when it comes to
defending the rights of others.
Stand up for the rights of
others, and in some ways
it's even more important
than standing up
for your own
rights, because when
people seek to repress
freedom for some
and you may remain
silent, you are
complicit in that repression and
you may well become its victim.
Do not be complicit.
Do not follow the crowd.
Speak up and fight back.
You will take your lumps.
I can assure you of that.
You will lose some friends
and make some enemies.
I can assure you of that, too.
But the arc of history
will be on your side,
and our nation will
be stronger for it.
Now, all of you graduates have
earned today's celebration.
You have a lot to be proud
of, a lot to be grateful for.
So tonight, as you leave
this great university behind,
have one last scorpion
bowl at the Kong.
On second thought, don't.
And tomorrow get
back to work making
our country and our world freer
forever, freer for everyone.
God bless and good luck.
Thank you, Mr.
Bloomberg, for delivering
such thoughtful remarks
to our community.
As we prepare to close
these afternoon exercises,
please stand once again
and join me now as we
sing our alma mater,
"Fair Harvard."
The words are in your program.
On behalf of the Harvard
Alumni Association,
let me once again welcome and
congratulate the class of 2014.
You join one of the world's most
respected alumni communities,
and we welcome you.
I now hereby declare the 2014
meeting of the Harvard Alumni
Association adjourned,
to reconvene
same time, same
place, same weather,
on the 28th of May, 2015.
Thank you for coming.
And here we are at the
close of the 145th meeting
of the Harvard Alumni
Association in conclusion
to Harvard's 363rd commencement.
We heard former mayor of New
York City Michael Bloomberg
charge the class of 2014 to
follow evidence where it leads.
It was an appeal for the
preservation of freedom
of expression, not only
on college campuses
but in cities and in towns
throughout our democracy.
Mayor Bloomberg said that
freedom of expression
and tolerance are the
hallmarks of a democracy
and that too often
on college campuses
liberals were repressing
conservative ideas
and not allowing
expression for those ideas.
He's concerned that today
with liberals repressing
conservatives similar
to the McCarthy era
when right wings were
repressing liberals.
He said it's the responsibility
of the university
to teach students how to think,
to listen to the other side,
and to be able to discuss,
debate, and learn.
This was the charge
of Michael Bloomberg
to the Harvard class of 2014.
Rennie.
Our president first
noted the buildings
around the theater,
which contribute
to the support of our students.
She then outlined
the obligations
which Harvard shared purposes.
Our research efforts, she noted.
We owe the world our research
efforts and entrepreneurship.
We owe the world to produce
the knowledge and education
of question.
And we owe the world to
create critical questions
whose answers will
shape the future.
And finally, we owe the
future men and women
to be teachers and
public servants,
ready to take on
today's problems
and continue to invest
in them in the future.
Thank you for joining us
for the afternoon exercises
of Harvard's 363th commencement.
And I will conclude
with the "Villanelle
for an Anniversary," written
for Harvard's 350th celebration
in 1986 by Seamus Heaney.
He entitled the Villanelle
"John Harvard Walks the Yard."
"A spirit moved.
John Harvard walked the yard.
The atom lay unsplit, the west
unwon, the books stood opened
and the gates unbarred.
The maps dreamt
on like moondust.
Nothing stirred.
The future was a
verb in hibernation.
A spirit moved.
John Harvard walked the yard.
Before the classic style,
before the clapboard,
all through the small hours of
an origin, the books stood open
and the gate unbarred.
Night passage of
a migratory bird.
Wingflap.
Gownflap.
Like a homing pigeon,
a spirit moved.
John Harvard walked the yard.
Was that his soul, look, sped
to its reward by grace or works?
A shooting star?
An omen?
The books stood open
and the gate unbarred.
Begin again where frosts
and tests were hard.
Find yourself or founder.
Here, imagine, a spirit moves.
John Harvard walked the yard.
The books stand open
and the gates unbarred."
Thank you so much,
and we look forward
to seeing you on May 28,
2015 for the 146th meeting
of the Harvard
Alumni Association
as part of Harvard's
364th commencement.
This page was last edited on 24 February 2024, at 17:45