Commencement Speaker: Anna Quindlen

It's official! Anna Quindlen P’07 will be the commencement address speaker!

From an All-Student Email entitled "Wesleyan Honorary Degree Recipients":

It is with great pleasure that I announce to the Wesleyan community that an award-winning best-selling author, a pioneering entrepreneur and philanthropist and two dedicated members of the Middletown community will be the honorary degree recipients at the 177th Wesleyan Commencement on May 24, 2009.

Anna Quindlen P’07, who will also give the Commencement Address, is a novelist, a journalist, and a champion of higher education. She currently writes the “Last Word” column on the back page of Newsweek and serves as chair of the board of Barnard College, where she received a degree in English literature.
(AP Photo)

Ms. Quindlen has published five novels, all of them bestsellers. Her most recent, Rise and Shine, debuted at number one on The New York Times bestseller list. She has also published many nonfiction books, including Thinking Out Loud, How Reading Changed My Life, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life, which has sold more than a million copies.

Ms. Quindlen spent most of her journalism career at The New York Times, where she wrote three columns, “About New York,” “Life in the 30s,” and “Public and Private.” She won the Pulitzer Prize for her work on the paper's OpEd page. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities.

Ms. Quindlen is the mother of three children. Her son Christopher Krovatin, also a novelist, graduated from Wesleyan in 2007.

[Via Michael Roth '78]

Fact Check: Commencement Proposal

This just in from the WSA, addressing some of the concerns and misunderstandings expressed earlier on Wesleying and in the Argus:

Myth: The WSA is barring Senior Class President Ravid Chowdhury '09 from speaking during commencement.
Fact: The proposed resolution would not go into effect for the Class of 2009. Ravid would still speak during the 2009 commencement. Future Senior Class Presidents would be eligible to speak during commencement, as would all other graduating seniors.

Myth: The WSA will not allow future Senior Class Presidents to speak during commencement because committee members cannot apply.
Fact: When the resolution goes into effect in 2010, all Senior Class Officers will have the right to apply to speak during commencement, including the Senior Class President.

Myth: Unlike other schools which allow any senior to apply, the WSA only wants WSA members to be in the running to speak during commencement.
Fact: Any member of the senior class would be eligible to speak during commencement, and the committee would be required to consider all applications.

Myth: The senior class president is currently elected to and has the right to speak during commencement.

Fact: The resolution would potentially alter the tradition of the senior class president speaking during commencement. However, this tradition is an expectation and not a right laid forth by the WSA Constitution, which clearly states that "the officers of the Senior Class shall be the search committee for the Senior Class's commencement speaker". Furthermore, Senior Class Presidents rarely make mention of commencement during his election campaign. Many juniors have never been to a commencement and are unaware that in electing their senior class president they are also choosing a commencement speaker.

Myth: The WSA is creating a small, undemocratic committee of WSA members to choose the commencement speaker.
Fact: The committee would be democratically elected by the Senior Class when they vote to elect the Senior Class Officers (including President) at the end of their junior year. Senior Class Officers are elected to represent their entire class and are separate from the WSA.

Myth: The Senior Class will lose their voice in selecting which of their members speaks during commencement.
Fact: The Senior Class commencement speaker would be selected by the Senior Class Officers, who are the democratically elected representatives of the Senior Class.

Myth: The WSA was hoping to sneak this change by without anybody noticing.
Fact: The WSA has not yet held a vote or even a discussion on the proposed resolution. The proposal is a working draft and it was emailed to all students on campus, and it is also accessible in your e-Portfolio and on the WSA home page. The WSA is also reaching out via Wesleying and going door-to-door to raise awareness about the proposal.

Myth: The WSA doesn't want your input on the resolution.

Fact: The WSA has consulted with current Senior Class President Ravid Chowdhury '09 on multiple occasions about the resolution. The WSA is paying very close attention to what people have to say about the proposal and has invited the entire campus to participate in the first discussion of the matter, which will occur at the next General Assembly meeting, Sunday at 7pm in Usdan 108. You can also talk to any WSA representative or email your concerns to wsa@wesleyan.edu. Your input will determine the contents of the resolution as it moves towards a vote, as well as the outcome of that vote!

Student Commencement Speaker Reconsidered

It's usually taken for granted that the senior class president will give a speech at graduation each year, but the WSA is apparently entertaining a motion this week to turn over selection of a student speaker to a committee composed of senior class officers, who would choose from a pool of applicants and be barred from applying themselves.

Which seems kind of arbitrary. If someone's being chosen to represent an entire graduating class, they should be chosen by more students in the class than just a few WSA members.

But I'm surprised that the article and Wespeaks in the Argus about this issue neglect to mention the likely reason that this resolution was even put forward - last year's senior class president gave a speech to mixed reactions, and it was kind of embarrassing to have someone like Barack Obama (not to mention everyone else present) witness the Wesleyan student body represented by one somewhat erratic speaker.

Which isn't to say that would be the case this year - by at least several accounts, 2009's class president Ravid Chowdhury is deserving of the privilege, and it would be unfair to take it away when he was ostensibly elected by seniors last year with the knowledge that he'd be speaking at graduation.

But the Argus doesn't have a bad idea in proposing that in addition to the class president, who is elected mainly for being a good organizer if not necessarily a good speech-maker, another student be chosen to address the class based solely on their ability to deliver a great speech.

In any case, the WSA votes on the issue this weekend. You can watch the 2008 student commencement address here (cut ahead to 9:40 for it), or read the full transcript.

MSNBC's Graduation Dedication

By now you've all probably settled into some kind of summer routine (and here's to the hope that said routine is every bit as productive/ rewarding/ debauched as you intend it to be).

But here is yet another flashback from MSNBC's Nightly News to the graduation season of late May. This video montage dedicated to the class of 2008 shows bits from the commencement ceremonies of various schools around the country, but clearly most notable is the clip of Wesleyan's Taiko drummers and Barack Obama's address at 1:17:



Other commencement speakers featured in the segment (full addresses of several can be browsed on the site) are such luminaries as Al Gore at Carnegie Mellon, J.K. Rowling at Harvard, Angela Lansbury at UMiami... and George W. Bush at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

MSNBC.com: To The Class of 2008...

Prof's pics of Obama & Roth

Prof William Johnston of the History Department sends us these photos, taken from the very back row of faculty during commencement. Ooh, pretty:

Obama in the "Middletown Groves"

NYTimes conservative columnist William Kristol attempts some back-handed dissing of Obama's Wesleyan commencement address (enough already!), this time about Obama's failure to exhort Wesleyan students to join the military.

Kristol concedes that the "speech was skillfully crafted and well delivered, the grace notes were graceful, and the exhortations to public service seemed heartfelt but not cloying", but still tries to tack on this lame criticism. Clearly Obama is a bad American, and Wesleyan students are all lazy liberals.

All that is not really surprising, but where did this line come from: "He felt no need to tell the graduating seniors in the lovely groves of Middletown that they should be grateful to their peers who were far away facing dangers on behalf of their country".

Has he been to Middletown? No offense meant Middletown residents, but last time I checked there was a conspicuous lack of any kind of groves.

NYTimes: What Obama Left Out

NYPost: Columnist's.. uhh... interesting take on Obama's address

So we've seen all sorts of media coverage so far about Obama's commencement address at Wesleyan, ranging from the traditional to the student-directed to the satirical. But this column today by Adam Brodsky entitled "BAM'S LAND OF LOSERS: HIS PATHETIC ADVICE TO GRADS" was too good to pass up... and I don't think it's intended to be satire. I think he really means it:

Obama's America has two groups: those in need - and those who care for them. Missing are the folks who produce real wealth - the goods and services all Americans enjoy. Obama could have galvanized the grads, urging them to follow in the paths of these heroes - to take a job, say, with Big Oil and invent a cheaper way to make cars run. Instead, he ladled out soggy oatmeal. FOR all his soaring, hopeful rhetoric, Barack Obama chose an odd message this week to send Wesleyan's graduating seniors.

Face it, kids - he basically said - Americans are losers. Pathetic, needy dependents who can't make it without help. So forget your dreams, dear graduates. Go forth and aid your fellow deadbeats.

Never mind "The Audacity of Hope." Obama was trumpeting "The Ubiquity of Failure." "The Equality of Need." "The Endlessness of the Dole."

OK, I exaggerate - a little. Here are his actual words: "Our collective service can shape the destiny of this generation . . . Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

That is, unless we come together and fix America's myriad flaws (like poverty, which never disappears), we're all doomed.

...

But his speech was more than just recycled graduation clichés. Obama, who worked as a community organizer in his youth, was describing his world, his vision.

Yes, he's sometimes paid rhetorical homage to American capitalism, acknowledging that it has "led to a standard of living unmatched in history."

But his record betrays something else: He favors higher taxes, "fair trade" over "free trade," a higher minimum wage, bailouts for subprime "victims," penalties for "predatory lenders," bigger subsidies for health care and housing.

For Obama, such stands - and a communal spirit - offer "change" and "hope."

"All it takes is one act of service," he says, "one blow against injustice, to send forth what Robert Kennedy called that tiny ripple of hope."

But America is neither unjust nor bereft of hope. Far from it.

And if Barack Obama thinks the next generation of Americans needs to spend its time dwelling on this nation's "wrongs" and catering to the "underserved," he's got a sad vision for America indeed.

That's right, Wes grads. America is not unjust! Wow, good to hear! I guess I'll just believe it now. Also, apparently, it would be soooo sad if you spent time trying to fix the nation's wrongs and tried to serve the underserved. Don't do that. Don't listen to Obama, that commie.

Read the rest here.

23/6 Deconstructs Wesleyan Liberalism

23/6 spoofs Wesleyan students' reactions to Obama at commencement with a kind of lame fake Wespeak. How many people at Wes actually fulfill this Kucinich-supporting, deconstruction-happy stereotype? Although this is an "overstimulated, underinformed Wesleyan sophomore", so I guess there could be one out there in particular:

Though I'm just a sophomore, I snuck into Barack Obama's commencement speech this weekend (stickin' it to the man since 1988!) to listen to the words of wisdom of The Great One, as he's informally known on campus.

Don't get me wrong--I dig on Barry's commitment to bureaucratic transparency, his refreshing approach to diplomacy, and his mad oratorical skills as much as the next former Kucinich supporter whose hopes were dashed early in the game. But in this campaign of firsts--first black, first female, first semi-qualified Republican (!)--I fear we may simply be reversing course and privileging novelty and change over the tried-and-true and status quo, just as Derrida would point out we have always privileged speech over text and man over Woman.

23/6: An Overstimulated, Underinformed Wesleyan Sophomore Writes a Campus Newspaper Editorial on Barack Obama's Commencement Speech

Obama in HD

Adam Bernier '06 has just gotten the Obama speech at commencement uploaded to veoh in all of its high-definition goodness, if anyone is interested. He says that he also has other footage he's willing to share if people want.

The Obama speech is here.

Obama's Commencement Address: Similar to his at Knox College

James Fallows at The Atlantic has some interesting commentary about whether or not it's okay that Obama may not write his own speeches, including his commencement address at Wesleyan. He later addresses new evidence that Obama probably wrote the speech himself: the fact that there were some very similar words from his 2005 commencement address at Knox College than many Wes Commencement attendees may find sound familiar.

Here are some parts that seem particularly similar:

Now, no one can force you to meet these challenges. If you want, it will be pretty easy for you to leave here today and not give another thought to towns like Galesburg and the challenges they face. There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one is forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits, and all the other things that our money culture says that you should want, that you should aspire to, that you can buy.

But I hope you don't walk away from the challenge. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It's primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

James Fallows ultimately finds it OK that (a) Obama may not write all his own speeches and (b) that he has repeated some material from past speeches that weren't widely publicized. I agree and don't blame Obama - especially since he had less than a week to plan this, while maintaining an active presidential campaign schedule - but it's interesting nevertheless.

Official Commencement Photo Gallery

Official photos of Reunion & Commencement are up at the administration's website. They're pretty good!

More Commencement Video Clips

President Roth's Welcome


Senator Obama Receiving his Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree


You can view the entire commencement ceremony, complete with fancy camera work (by fancy, I mean multiple angles, including the always nice to have front and center angle, which I could not get from the press area) on the WesCast page:

• Full Commencement


• President Roth's Speech


• Senator Obama's Speech

Argus Commencement Coverage

Below are links to online coverage of commencement by the Argus.
Congratulations, class of 2008!
Obama encourages public service in commencement address
Obama draws alumni to former home

It Was a Joke, Not a Gaffe

I don't know why, but I was bothered enough by the attempts to paint Senator Barack Obama as being too stupid to pronounce the name of the school he was speaking at (previously reported here) to throw together a video demonstrating how it was obviously a joke.



The screenshot of the May 22 Wesleying post may be difficult to read, even at full screen. See this link to read it in your browser.

It would have been a much better video if I could have included the footage from Fox News, but it has since been taken offline.

Commencement Speakers: Here, There, Everywhere!

Now that you've seen sufficient coverage on Barack Obama at Wesleyan, here is an interesting database of commencement speakers at universities all over the nation.

Some interesting commencement speakers not on the list:

• Harvard - J.K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series)
• Penn - Michael Bloomberg (mayor of New York City, businessman)
• Stanford - Oprah Winfrey (media mogul, philanthropist)
• Yale - Tony Blair (former British prime minister)
• Princeton - Stephen Colbert (comedian, actor, writer)
• MIT - Muhammad Yunus (banker, economist, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient)

Anyways, the database is pretty comprehensive. Enjoy.

Roth's Remarks

Here are some of my favorite lines, which may not match the video exactly because I'm pulling them from his prepared remarks:

• "I know that we share a desire to make Wesleyan the best school in America -- not according to US News, but on the basis of how hearts and minds are developed here."


• "Being in the company of students as gifted and energetic as Wesleyan's class of 2008, gives me faith that we may well be able to reject the status quo, to build a politics and a culture of hope and community rather than of fear and divisiveness. If you engage in the serious politics of change, if you participate in the struggle for social justice and sustainable economic growth, I believe we can change course."


• "You will hear people tell you that the greatest protection against violence is surveillance, that greater security is developed with higher fences to keep out the foreigners, or that we must project violence on distant shores to keep our homes safe. DO NOT BELIEVE THESE MESSAGES. Please remember that your education stands in opposition to non-sense and cruelty; please recall your capacity to create when others around you call for destruction."

_{Thanks for your patience}

We are so cool.

Most of the coverage has focused on Obama and that's all great and interesting, but for me, no one has summed up the day better than Colin McEnroe of the Hartford Courant: 

"In the main, though, it was a refulgent day, and Obama seemed less like the center of the universe and more like a perfect ornament to the occasion, which is meet and right. The processional music was many minutes of Wesleyan taiko drummers, dancing and pummeling and pounding out Japanese rhythms, and I had to agree with the president, Michael Roth, who strode to the podium and said, "Wesleyan, you are so cool." It was impossible not to envy all those young souls who had just spent four years studying vodou and gamelan music and Wallace Stevens and Dante and the images of gunplay in American mass culture and expressionist painting and the history of the civil rights movement and Goedel's theory of uncertainty and the life of the cell. And now they were headed to Brooklyn and San Francisco and Boston to love and scramble and stumble and catch themselves; and who wouldn't want to be one of them?"

Full Article Here. 

Media Roundup: Obama at Commencement

Obama's appearance at commencement was clearly big news. The press was everywhere - even on top of Olin! [Edit by Lauraalyse]: This wasn't the press. This was the secret service w/ snipers.


Here's notable coverage/analysis from some major news sources:

- Associated Press: Obama urges Wesleyan grads to enter public service
- Los Angeles Times: Obama Speaks at Wesleyan Commencement
- Boston Globe: Obama treated as rock star at Wes commencement
- NYTimes: Obama Stands in for Kennedy at Wesleyan
- ABC News: Obama Replaces Ted Kennedy
- Baltimore Sun: Obama's Kennedy Bond Deepens
- International Herald Tribune: Obama Stands in for Kennedy at Wesleyan
- Bloomberg News: Obama Asks Wesleyan Students to Serve Their Country

Fox News (In a Sad Attempt) Tries to Burn Obama

In the latest Fox News report, it tried to embarrass Obama for saying "Wellesley-an" in his commencement speech today. They seem to acknowledge it was a joke, and they also add that Senior Class President Rashida Richardson made the same joke in her speech. However, they are pissed that it wasn't caught on tape (except by our own staff member, Beau "Spazeboy" Anderson), and seem to forget that they actually made the mistake of getting us confused with Hilary Clinton's alma matter, Wellesley.

From the NYTimes.com Homepage

Full article here.

Includes quotes by new alumni Genevieve Angelson, Andrew Marvin-Smith, and Emily Gallivan '08.

For those who can't get to it from the link:

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — When Senator Edward M. Kennedy endorsed Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in January, Mr. Kennedy passed the torch of Democratic liberalism, saying it was “time again for a new generation of leadership.”

On Sunday, Mr. Obama embraced the legacy by standing in for Mr. Kennedy, who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last week, and delivering the commencement speech at Wesleyan University.

The symbolism of protégé and mentor permeated Mr. Obama’s address, which called graduates to public service, honored Mr. Kennedy and reflected the legacy of his family.

“It is rare in this country of ours that a person exists who has touched the lives of nearly every single American without any of us even realizing it,” Mr. Obama said, his voice rising. “And I have a feeling that Ted Kennedy is not done just yet. But surely, if one man can achieve so much and make such a difference in the lives of so many, then each of us can do our part.”

Mr. Kennedy has deep ties to Wesleyan — his stepdaughter graduated Sunday, and his son Edward Jr. celebrated his 25th reunion this weekend.

Mr. Obama implored the 737 undergraduates and 100 graduate students to change the country and the world through service to others, a theme Mr. Kennedy planned to focus on. Mr. Obama urged them to help rebuild New Orleans, volunteer at a local soup kitchen or help end the situation in Darfur, and to remember that change will come, though not immediately.

“It’s because you have an obligation to yourself, because our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation,” Mr. Obama said. “Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story.”

Mr. Obama paralleled his life to the Kennedy family, telling graduates he was born the year John F. Kennedy “called a generation of Americans to ask their country what they could do” and went on to become a community organizer in Chicago because he was inspired by that call to service and by stories of the civil rights movement.

Mr. Obama also mentioned Robert F. Kennedy, whose assassination late in the Democratic presidential nomination process was referred to last week by Mr. Obama’s rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, as a reason for staying in the race.

Mr. Obama told graduates not to take the easy way out and flag in their dedication to helping others and enacting change.

“I hope you’ll remember, during this those times of doubt and frustration, that there is nothing naïve about your impulse to change the world,” Mr. Obama said. “Because all it takes is one act of service — one blow against injustice — to send forth that tiny ripple of hope that Robert Kennedy spoke of.”

John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College, said the speech showed that Mr. Obama was assuming the mantle of Edward Kennedy’s liberal legacy.

“This event is a symbolic passing of the torch of Democratic liberalism from Ted Kennedy to Barack Obama,” Professor Pitney said. “It’s a happy coincidence of being gallant and politically smart. He’s filling in for an ailing friend and at the same time doing a world of political good. Moments like that are rare.”

Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, a good friend of Mr. Kennedy and a supporter of Mr. Obama, said Mr. Obama’s offer to deliver the address highlighted the bond between the two men.

“It clearly is a demonstration of profound respect, but it’s more than that,” Mr. Delahunt said. “There’s a personal connection there, and it’s symbolic of a new generation.”

In addition to the 10,000 official attendees, about 5,000 people gathered on a hillside on a sparkling spring afternoon to watch Mr. Obama’s speech, which was preceded by a conferring of honorary degrees and a performance by a Japanese student drum group.

Emily Gallivan, 21, said that she was happy with Mr. Obama, but that she appreciated Mr. Kennedy’s ties to the university.

“He has multiple connections to the school,” Ms. Gallivan said, “and it would have been nice to have him speak at his stepdaughter’s graduation.”

Andrew Marvin-Smith, 22, who is heading to China in a few weeks to teach English, said he thought Mr. Obama’s calls to go abroad were needed.

“America needs to pick itself up and get in touch with the rest of the world,” Mr. Marvin-Smith said.

Genevieve Angelson, 22, who affixed felt letters that read “Obama ’08” onto her red graduation gown, said Mr. Obama’s address was one of the most inspiring she had heard.

“It made me feel like we have never been asked to do anything, and the fact that he asked us was appropriately overdue,” Ms. Angelson said.

While Ms. Angelson said she was ecstatic to hear Mr. Obama speak, she was saddened as to why.

“I regret that something so wonderful for us came out of something so sad,” Ms. Angelson said.