To the Editor:
I noticed that you have yet to give any real news coverage to the selection of Hillary Clinton to be the Commencement speaker this year—one sentence buried deep in an article about tuition increases doesn’t count! It’s been two weeks, not counting your recess.
One of my colleagues, also an RPI graduate, summed it up beautifully when he said, “She has no technical standing and is of dubious integrity.” So why the silence? Were the students consulted? The faculty? What did they say?
To the math professor who suggests that we should just give up commencement speeches if we must look for non-controversial speakers I say, “Rubbish!”
My daughter graduated from the University of Virginia in 2001. The commencement speaker was Francis Collins, who directed the genome project. He gave a pretty good speech. He certainly has technical standing, and no one I know doubts his integrity.
Michael Liebert
ALUM ’68
