Ivy Class Day Speaker Smackdown
It's practically a ritual for seniors to get righteously pissed off about their Class Day speakers. Jim Lehrer? Too stuffy. John McCain? Too conservative. Soledad O'Brien? OK yeah, she's actually pretty lame ...
So after seeing how the Ivies stack up in terms of musical guests, we thought a Class Day speaker-measuring contest would be in order. Who scored the hot shots? Who got stuck with duds? Your call:
- Brown: Craig Mello, Nobel Prize-winning biochemical researcher
- Columbia: Matthew Fox, actor (Lost, Party of Five)
- Cornell: Soledad O'Brien, CNN anchor
- Dartmouth: Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary
- Harvard: Bill Clinton, former U.S. president; Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft
- Penn: James Baker, former secretary of state
- Princeton: Bradley Whitford, actor (The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip)
- Yale: Fareed Zakaria, editor, Newsweek International
It seems clear Harvard scored the jackpot this time around. You'd think just one of the two most famous Bills in the world would have been enough. (Maybe Harvard wasn't sure which one was more prestigious, so they invited both just to be safe.) But don't rule out some dark horse performances. Who knows, maybe Bradley Whitford will deliver one of those rousing paeans to American values and soft backlighting. Maybe Matthew Fox will share anecdotes about his own sexiness back when he attended Columbia. If you get video, let us know.
(Re the Fox uproar: Now is probably a good time to tell you that in March, we read at Bwog that the actor Robert Maschio -- aka Scrubs's "The Todd" -- had offered to give a counter-Fox commencement speech at Columbia, opposite Fox. We emailed him to offer IvyGate as an official sponsor of the greatest speech ever; Maschio was totally into it, until it came time to commit, and then he backed off. Something lame about t-shirts. We were crushed, but regardless, now we can tell our children that we discussed going halfsies on kegs with the greatest actor of his generation, and no one can take that away.)
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May 11th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Our guy at Princeton was also the evil businessman guy in Billy Madison.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Looking at the all of the other speakers makes it very clear why Cornell’s administration insisted on a non-white female. 7/8 are dudes, 6 of those 7 are white dudes. C’mon Ivies — boring.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Whitford is a kickass speaker having heard his UofW address a few years back and his speech at his Weslyen reunion. Hopefully this one will make it online.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:40 am
fareed zakaria is definitely low-hanging fruit for yale, consider that he’s part of the Corporation.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Wow. Brown’s, Princeton’s, and Columbia’s speakers are pretty lame. Dartmouth and Harvard scored the best. Hank Paulson was Golman Sachs’ CEO–that should make all the aspiring iBankers giddy. As for comment #2: who the fuck cares if the speakers are white?! get a life–it doesn’t matter how diverse something is, it’s the caliber that matters, dork.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Hank Paulson is a pretty mean motherfucker, by reputation, and a Dartmouth alum to boot. Most here are relatively satisfied.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
this isn’t really so simple. class day =/= commencement. at columbia for example we don’t have commencement speakers, just the president’s speech. also, each school has its own class day speaker so while the college got Fox, the engineering school got Calatrava, a pretty impressive architect/engineer. I think that like at Harvard for example one of the Bills is speaking at class day, the other at commencement?(am i wrong? either way you guys still kicked ass as far as biggest names and having heard gates speak a couple of times i think he’ll be awesome)
May 11th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Wesleyan had Bradley Whitford (class of ‘76) last year.
May 11th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Okay, so I have to admit I find Bradley Whitford really attractive.
He only graduated college 8 years before I was born. That’s not gross, is it?
May 11th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Columbian is right, Gates is the commencement, not class day speaker.
Clinton is a sort of strange choice, as the trend has been for comedians for class day speakers (Conan, MacFarlane, Ali G, etc)
May 11th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Dammit, Harvard always wins!
May 11th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Gates is the Commencement speaker, Clinton is the Class Day speaker.
May 11th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Dartmouth is giving an honorary degree to Willy Mays…I just think that is sweet.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Your mom always wins…my Willy in her Gates.
May 12th, 2007 at 12:04 am
umm…not funny. btw, why is harvard never on here?
May 12th, 2007 at 12:49 am
“As for comment #2: who the fuck cares if the speakers are white?! get a life–it doesn’t matter how diverse something is, it’s the caliber that matters, dork.”
Actually, sDJ, given that there are plenty of high “caliber” people of color and women who could speak, it does say something that our universities continue to predominatly choose white men–and usually old ones.
May 12th, 2007 at 3:23 am
“post comment” lately? predominantly?
May 12th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Clinton is speaking at Harvard?! OMG! Let’s go crazy! This is awesome. Want a reality check? He spoke at Cornell three years ago. Damn Cantab copycats. An Ivy retread and a dropout. Pardon me for not being impressed.
May 12th, 2007 at 11:12 am
“Clinton is a sort of strange choice, as the trend has been for comedians for class day speakers (Conan, MacFarlane, Ali G, etc)”
I don’t know…I think his term was pretty hilarious…
May 12th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
umm for what it’s worth: aretha franklin is also coming to penn’s graduation for an honorary degree in “musicology”. i’d take her over clinton any day !
May 12th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I wonder why Yale always seems to get the short end of the stick. Next to Harvard, they should have the easiest time of any school in finding top notch speakers. I remember a bunch of years ago when they were stuck with The Fonz from Happy Days. Eeeey.
May 12th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Seems like Clinton is really making the rounds. Will Yale be next?
May 13th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Brown is giving a honorary degree to B.B. King, now thats pretty sweet.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I hope you all will find something you love to do and you do it well enough to be invited to speak at a future graduation. Everything has a story to it, write your story well…from a mom.
May 13th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
C’07, maybe that has to do with the fact that Yale doesn’t award honorary degrees to speakers? This year though it definitely has to do with the fact that our senior class council (the majority of it at least) is the paragon of retardation.
May 13th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Brown ‘58: You would actually be a better graduation speaker than some of these people…
y07: I hate to be the paragon of political correctness (woohoo Ivy stereotypes), but using ‘retardation’ in that context crosses a line. Nothing personal, but language is everything (even if it is a lie), and terms like that can be pretty powerful…
May 13th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Harvard ‘10: You’re retarded.
May 13th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
We’re stuck in the same situation here at Cornell regarding honorary degrees. Also, our new president apparently wasn’t on the ball, because he was too caught up with his other duties. Yeah. Kinda dropped the ball on that one.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I’m skipping my commencement (Yale) to go to Harvard’s. Are people still selling their tickets? AC should speak at Class Day every year. I don’t want some neo-con war monger.
Regards,
Ford-Clinton republicrat
May 14th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I don’t think Yale’s practice of not awarding honorary degree is the reason we get 2nd rate speakers. Does anyone take those honorary degree seriously? On the other hand, Yale only invites speakers who are alumni of the university. Hence, Anderson Cooper last year. Henry The Fonz Winkler got his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
May 14th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
One of my favorite things about the students at my school is that we love to exclude SEAS’s (the engineering school) admission statistics so that we appear to be hyperselective, but come class day we’re just as quick to claim SEAS’s speaker as ours, too.
May 14th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Thanks, Harvard’10. See you at the campus dance! I admit that was my first blog and I feel it was a little too righteous. I would like to be more constructive and suggest speakers or honorary degree candidates. How about Joel Cohen for, “How Many People Can the Earth Support; Bernard Lewis for ” What Went Wrong?”; or Edward Humes for “Monkey Girl”. It would be nice if William James was still alive.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Anyone willing to sell a Princeton class day ticket?
May 14th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Honorary degrees are awarded for Graduation speakers, not for Class Day speakers, and most universities don’t pay their Class Day speakers, either. Most notables have no desire to recite a standard inspirational speech at Ivy League graduations. Shocker. Why do you think it takes most schools so long to announce their speakers? Do you think the President’s Office just forgot that Class Day was going to happen again and had to slap something together last minute? Put 2 and 2 together.
May 15th, 2007 at 9:15 am
It’s not Yale’s practice to only invite alumni – Thomas Friedman spoke in ‘03 and Ken Burns in ‘04. The reason Yale’s speakers aren’t typically as impressive is that we refuse to pay our Class Day speakers, and thus we often get alumni (Pataki, Cooper, Holmes Norton) or parents of current students (Friedman and Burns) who are willing to do it for free…
May 16th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Just for the record, Clinton already did Dartmouth, oh back when he was President of the United States instead of just a high priced speaker (or soon to be 1st Gentleman)
May 16th, 2007 at 4:40 am
we stink
May 17th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Umm…Clinton spoke at Harvard, also when he was a president, during my freshman year (2000). Except he came for the entire day, doing an mid-day talk, a Q&A at the IOP, then a dinner reception also at the IOP. I think it was a favor for Summers or something, but it was one of the best moments I can remember from Harvard – far outstripping any empty-platitudes-laden graduation speech (yes, we all know there will be difficulties and w/ our expensive eductations, we will overcome. Thanks.)
Also, Harvard alum, I believe Harvard never posts on this forum b/c most of what we say are greeted with other Ivy-hate. It’s kind of funny, but also pretty pathetic.
May 20th, 2007 at 12:32 am
clinton spoke at yale tercentennial 2001
May 21st, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Penn ‘06 — I agree 100%; Bradley Whitford = sexy.
IvyGate, it would be nice if you guys put roll-over captions on images…
May 21st, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Penn ‘06 — I agree 100%; Bradley Whitford = sexy.
IvyGate, it would be nice if you guys put roll-over captions on images…
May 24th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Anyone from Princeton care to give them a smackdown over here: http://media.yaf.org/blog/?p=54 They’re reporting what your speaker said, before it has happened! There is an 800 number.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:42 am
FYI — Although many of us seniors were at first wary of our Commencement speaker, we ended up being extremely impressed with Soledad O’Brien’s talk on Saturday. Will post a link if I can find a clip online!
May 28th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Fareed Zakaria’s speech ended up being pretty awesome. The funniest thing was that he brought up two comments from this thread – one about “low-hanging fruit” and another about “backpack with two zippers.” A little self-irony goes a long way.
June 5th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
jb says:
clinton spoke at yale tercentennial 2001
-Our quadcentennial is in less than three decades, take that Yale.
June 6th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Harvard 2010: I’m quite pleased that you took the time to look up ‘tercentennial’ on OED.com. In other news, eat a dick.
June 6th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Harvard 2010: I think you mean “quadricentennial.”
For the record, we recently celebrated our 800 year anniversary; you have some catching up to do.
June 9th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Sorry Oxford you don’t really enter in to this discussion. were talking about founding dates of still relevant institutions, not decrepit relics from the past.
June 10th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
“800 year anniversary” — don’t you mean “800th anniversary”?
June 13th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Bill Clinton has spoken at Yale twice fairly recently on big occasions: once for the Tercentenary and once after that in Woolsey Hall when he gave a fantastic talk about his work for Aids in Africa and India since leaving office. He also came several times for his law school reunions and spoke there–so he has spoken at Yale plenty (not that Class Day would not be nice, too. He is among the world’s best speakers). Hillary Clinton was a fairly recent Yale Class Day speaker and she too was amazing. The Clintons are unbelievable speakers. But Fareed Zakaria turned out to be stand up: awesome blend of funny and serious.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I would like to see more prominent people like the ones shown in this blog to be supportive of more international affairs that affect our place in this world. We should not forget the commitment made towards the U.N. Millennium Goals (a pact of ending extreme world hunger by the year 2025) in 2000. According to The Borgen Project, an annual $19 billion dollars is needed to eliminate half of the extreme poverty affecting the world by the year 2015. To my sense, it is almost unacceptable to have spent so far more than $340 billion in Iraq only, when we have more than war immunities to change the world and eliminate poverty.