After four years of witnessing the acrimony that follows the selection of any commencement speaker at Penn, I have come to realize that the ordeal is as cyclical and reliable as clockwork:

First, the speaker is announced to the unsuspecting student body, beginning the gradual process of enlightenment. As a rule of thumb, the speaker’s name recognition among Penn students is inversely proportional to the number of things he or she (but typically he) has actually accomplished. We are told just who this person is in one or two articles in The Daily Pennsylvanian, which are usually accompanied by an explanations of this year’s selection process (”last year we used a dartboard, but THIS year we used student input in dart throwing”). Next, The DP publishes several articles detailing the first round of complaints about the speaker, which are then met immediately with retaliating complaints from the speaker’s supporters. Then, as inevitably as the sun sets and the budget deficit rises, someone takes note of the complaining that has gripped the campus, and — you guessed it — starts complaining about the complaining.

One week and several hundred dead trees worth of newsprint later, we predictably find ourselves right back where we started: with a commencement speaker that some students like, some hate and most have yet to notice.

With that, I offer a new chapter to this annual epic — supplementing acrimony with action, and submitting for public consideration a new, improved list of speakers for Penn’s commencement:
(ul)

Obama/Hillary/Giuliani/McCain/anyone else running for President, because we’ll get national news coverage and minutes later, someone important from the speaker’s opposing party will say something dumb in response to our graduation ceremony. Either way, hilarity will ensue.

Al Gore, because wherever Al goes to talk about global warming, the climate change gods follow and send the environs plummeting into record low temperatures, and I’m sick of sweating my way through Commencement Day.

Larry Summers, because the story of his downfall is a worthy cautionary tale to us all — and his views on the problems facing higher education in America remain dead on.

Me, for obvious reasons.

St. Judith Rodin, and I say Saint Rodin because we should canonize her instead of offering yet another honorary degree. If you were around to compare Penn in 1994 to Penn in 2004, you’d agree.

Tony Blair, because Britain has a habit of unceremoniously dumping its best prime ministers, and this eloquent and righteous man will need something to do upon his inevitable dismissal from Number 10. Speaking at Penn would be a lovely consolation prize for the world’s biggest victim of George W. Bush.

The Donald. Who wouldn’t want to see the most infamous alum of the “Wharton School of Finance” (as he is wont to call it) takes the podium and perhaps proclaims to an unsuspecting Amy G., “you’re fired?”

John Bolton. The sweet ’stache alone makes him worthy of a Penn degree, but the fact that he was the only public servant to lay bare the U.N. for the carnival of tyrants that it is would make him a fitting and proper speaker at Penn.

Editor’s Note: for more alternative ideas for commencement speakers, check of “A Damn Good Man” on page 6 of the DP or online

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 6:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.