Cokie Roberts was apparently funny while also inspiring in her speech to St. Michael's College graduates. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia was described as captivating a few days later at the University of Vermont.
No small feats, either of those. Out of the gazillion graduation speeches made every year, the vast majority are unmemorable. Some of the memorable ones are remembered for their sheer dullness.
Indeed, it's got to be a daunting task to stand up there and hit a home run. How much of this stuff has already been said? What would you say if you were called upon to deliver a commencement address? You'd want to be engaging. You'd want to be inspiring. You'd want your speech to stick with the grads longer than the hangover they're likely nursing.
Gov. Jim Douglas is among those facing this task next weekend when he gives the commencement address at Keuka College in western New York. Just as you have likely never heard of Keuka College, its graduates have likely never heard of Jim Douglas. They chose him, though, because he is Uncle Jim to one of the members of the Class of 2007. And because Middlebury College had already snatched up Bill Clinton.
Keuka College happens to be near my home turf, a place of great beauty, though it's got to be one isolated place to go to college, tucked among grape vineyards and a long way from, well, just about anything. It happens that I will be raking my parents' leaves some miles down the road while Douglas is captivating the crowd. They have a lot of leaves and are particular about picking up every one, so I will be unable to sneak a listen for you.
What wisdom will Douglas bestow on them? Not the right crowd for one of those speeches lambasting the Vermont Legislature. His affordability speach? This is a crowd deeply in debt and unemployed whose sense of affordability is deciding between the 18-pack of Bud or the 18-pack of PBR.
No, he's going to have to pull a new arrow from his quiver for this one. According to an excerpt of his speech, he is apparently going to compare the environs of Keuka College with those of Vermont, a viable comparison. He'll then talk about embracing innovation and learning from the mistakes of previous generations.
You can just picture him holding up a cell phone and selling them on Vermont's goal to become the first e-state. It shouldn't take too much of a sales pitch to lure all 300 or so of these young adults to come work and live in Vermont. When it comes to sagging economies and departing young people, upstate New York has Vermont beat hands down. He could, by the end of the day, tip our demographics one-one-hundredth of a millimeter toward the younger set.
That is if they are listening. Who's the real audience at a graduation speech anyway? The parents maybe, if they're not too busy watching the whole thing through a camera lens, but I'm not so sure about the kids.
I can't remember who the speaker was for my 1983 graduation at UVM, and could find no record of it in my piles of paperwork. UVM spokesman Jeff Wakefield did some digging for me and tells me it was Elliot Richardson, the man who refused to fire Archibald Cox for President Nixon, who spoke that year. Sorry, Elliot.
I did locate the program from my high school graduation. Two classmates and two teachers apparently spoke. I remember not a word of it.
Jacques Cousteau lived a fascinating life. What do I remember of his speech at my brother's graduation from RPI? That it was dreadfully dull in a sweltering, packed gym.
Ben Cohen, the hip ice cream entrepreneur? My husband heard him address graduates at Hartwick College in central New York one year. Rambling, disjointed, and no free ice cream.
Free ice cream might be one way to grab the grads' attention. Anybody hear a graduation speech that stuck with them?
- Terri Hallenbeck
