To the Editor:
In light of all the controversy surrounding this year’s commencement speaker, I would like to point out that at least you have a so-called “controversial” person giving you the commencement address unlike our year in 2002 with Dennis Tito—no offense but paying a million dollars to be the first civilian in space is not that inspiring. Better yet, when my sister graduated, there was talk of Thurgood Marshall being the commencement speaker. He, however, passed away earlier that year, so local newsman Ed Dague gave the speech—a great guy, but we saw him every day on the local news.
The typical point of a commencement speech is to provide graduates some advice about the real world and sort of keep you awake as you eagerly wait to receive expensive parchment paper with some funny cursive writing. A commencement speech, however, can be a bit more entertaining when the speaker is of national recognition and can stir the kettle. In high school, Andy Rooney was my commencement speaker, since he was an alumnus. I was dead against him speaking due to his views on South Africa and apartheid and I was going to boycott.
Surprisingly, he had me laughing my head off and had gained newfound respect from me because I decided to go in with an open mind and listen to what he had to say.
In the end, people can gripe and complain about the selection of the speaker and blame it on this political ambition and that party affiliation, but it is kind of pointless to base these arguments on unsubstantiated facts. There was speculation that Dr. Jackson was using RPI as a stepping stone to be president of MIT, and there was talk that if John Kerry won the election she would be appointed to his presidential cabinet. In the end, these are all rumors and the situations never occured, so there is no “A ha! I knew it!”
I say next year, if the students feel like their voices were not heard about their personal selection of the commencement speaker, get involved and make sure the top choice is chosen and also available and willing to speak at commencement. I personally suggest you try to get Bono or Edge from U2: If UPenn can get Bono, why can’t RPI?
Nagesh Rao
ALUM ’02
