Commencement 2014 - Printable Version
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Commencement 2014 - Kathy - 02-04-2014
Stanford has announced that Bill & Melinda Gates are the commencement speakers this year.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/january/gates-2014-commencement-012814.html
Re: Commencement 2014 - dabigv13 - 02-04-2014
Every year is a spit in the face of us 06ers, who suffered Tom Brokaw talking about out parents' generation, on a football practice field. As if 4 years of losing to kal wasn't punishment enough, we couldn't even graduate in a proper stadium, as it was being renovated at the time. Backup level speaker to go with the backup venue.
Re: Commencement 2014 - stan01 - 02-04-2014
Carly Fiorina was our commencement speaker: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/speeches/fiorina/stanford_01.html
Re: Commencement 2014 - yvonne - 02-04-2014
Tip O'Neal.
The one line I remember was that no one ever said at the end of his life that he wished he had spent more time at the office.
Re: Commencement 2014 - washingtonismoney - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 09:39 AM)dabigv link Wrote:Every year is a spit in the face of us 06ers, who suffered Tom Brokaw talking about out parents' generation, on a football practice field. As if 4 years of losing to kal wasn't punishment enough, we couldn't even graduate in a proper stadium, as it was being renovated at the time. Backup level speaker to go with the backup venue.
Incorrect. '09 suffering through Anthony Kennedy + fear of giant recession makes us the cursed ones. Kennedy aired his theory that a classroom of Chinese college students' love for Legally Blonde demonstrated the country's desire for democracy. Quality argumentation, just as you would expect from one of the nine most celebrated individuals of a profession prizing...quality argumentation.
Re: Commencement 2014 - rudruff - 02-04-2014
Marian Wright Edelman told all our old white dads who had just sprung for 4 years of tuition how they were to blame for the worlds ills.
Re: Commencement 2014 - CowboyIndian - 02-04-2014
We had Ulysses S. Grant. He was drunk. So were we.
Re: Commencement 2014 - yvonne - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 09:30 AM)Kathy link Wrote:Stanford has announced that Bill & Melinda Gates are the commencement speakers this year.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/january/gates-2014-commencement-012814.html
I used to think of Gates as I do Zuckerberg, but I really like the person he has become after stepping down as CEO. Perhaps, he always was that person, but we didn't get to see it. The fact that he's doing the speech with Melinda indicates to me that they're going to talk about giving back. I hope it's a good one.
Re: Commencement 2014 - stupac2 - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 10:10 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:Incorrect. '09 suffering through Anthony Kennedy + fear of giant recession makes us the cursed ones. Kennedy aired his theory that a classroom of Chinese college students' love for Legally Blonde demonstrated the country's desire for democracy. Quality argumentation, just as you would expect from one of the nine most celebrated individuals of a profession prizing...quality argumentation.
I didn't realize you were also an '09er. I remember literally nothing about that speech, no one in my area was paying any attention at all. It was a really uninspired choice of speaker.
Re: Commencement 2014 - rudruff - 02-04-2014
The thing about Gates is that we grew to know him as a merciless titan of industry and the evil PC counterpart to the underdog Apple, and he may wind up being the greatest philanthropist in the history of the world.
Re: Commencement 2014 - CrazedZooChimp - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 09:39 AM)dabigv link Wrote:Every year is a spit in the face of us 06ers, who suffered Tom Brokaw talking about out parents' generation, on a football practice field. As if 4 years of losing to kal wasn't punishment enough, we couldn't even graduate in a proper stadium, as it was being renovated at the time. Backup level speaker to go with the backup venue.
Having also graduated '06 and sat through many others, we definitely weren't screwed by the speaker. Dana Gioia and the Alejandro Toledo were both way more boring. Brokaw was at least a good speaker and somewhat lighthearted (from what I remember).
I also just realized that my brother also had a news anchor as commencement speakers (his was Ted Koppel), weird.
Re: Commencement 2014 - 82lsju - 02-04-2014
Sandra Day O'Connor in Frost in 1982, that would be me in the middle of the picture (the one wearing glasses). I have no recollection of the speech, might have something to do with the sparkling wine we had been drinking all morning.....
![[Image: 215917_5349776942_9573_n.jpg]](https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/t1/215917_5349776942_9573_n.jpg)
Re: Commencement 2014 - Nan3cy - 02-04-2014
Extra credit to anyone who even remembers the guy who spoke at my graduation: Willard Wirtz. IIRC, he was Johnson's secretary of labor. The only thing I remember about his speech (and probably the only thing I remembered by a week after graduation) is that he must have been a pretty good politician. I had an eery sensation that he was talking strictly to the 20-somethings, while our parents were pretty sure he was talking to them.
Re: Commencement 2014 - TreeWeird - 02-04-2014
Here is a list by year:
http://library.stanford.edu/spc/university-archives/stanford-history/commencement-addresses
Saw Al Franken speak once... - Mick - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 10:28 AM)Publius link Wrote:Al Franken spoke at my sister's graduation and he had a twist on that:
"Heres a line from late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas that is often quoted at commencements. No man on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time at the office. How does he know that? Ill bet someone on their deathbed said, I wish I had spent more time at the office in my twenties and thirties, I would have had a much better life. gurgledead. Im sure that happens. And its quite possible that some former Enron or Arthur Anderson executive will use his last breath to say, I wish I had spent more time at the office and less time in prison.
...I only wish he was as funny as he thought he was. He delivered a "crickets" monologue when I was in college (shortly after he left SNL the first time), but acted as if he were Bob Hope, Richard Pryor and Jay Leno all rolled into one. He descended into scolding the audience for not laughing at his material. If anyone other than me read the book on SNL written in the mid-1980s (can't recall the title), you'll remember that Franken was universally considered to be the least talented writer/performer outside of Garrett Morris.
Happily, he is now a Senator, and I am laughing much more now than during his 1981 monologue...
My granddad was class of '42 - Mick - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 11:38 AM)TreeWeird link Wrote:Here is a list by year:
http://library.stanford.edu/spc/university-archives/stanford-history/commencement-addresses
I just noticed that the speaker that year was Monroe Deutsch, the Provost of the University of California. Someone had a sense of humor...
Re: Commencement 2014 - burger - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 11:38 AM)TreeWeird link Wrote:Here is a list by year:I glanced through the list, and I was going to write something like "we'll need about 60 straight years of women speakers to get to an even sex ratio."
http://library.stanford.edu/spc/university-archives/stanford-history/commencement-addresses
But then I counted. We'd actually need 101 straight years. Ouch.
Re: Commencement 2014 - BostonCard - 02-04-2014
The 2006 speaker, Vartan Gregorian, got his PhD in History at Stanford. That would not be particularly noteworthy, except that my wife's grandfather (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Vucinich) was his PhD advisor.
BC
Re: Commencement 2014 - Oasis - 02-04-2014
Robert Pinsky's '99 speech was as good as I have ever seen/heard. Happily, although I thought it was no longer available on video, it may be, although I couldn't get it to work. Thanks to Tree Weird for finding the list that includes transcript and video. http://news.stanford.edu/news/1999/june16/pinsky-616.html. Pinsky talks about how ceremonies that are worth anything are about two things, honoring the wisdom of the old (including the dead) and nurturing the young, part of which is passing on the old wisdom to new generations. It is very fine. I lifted its ideas shamelessly a time or two, but with attribution of course. Here's some of what he says:
"I mean the two great requirements of the human animal, without which human community is corrupt or useless, namely, caring for the young ones and honoring the wisdom of the old ones, including the ways and wisdom of the dead. The tribe or community or nation that fails at either of these missions brings woe and destruction on itself. Today the graduates pass symbolically from being the objects of the first concern, young ones who have been nurtured, to bearing the responsibilities of the second, those who are supposed to care for the young and who will preserve and extend the wisdom of the dead."
Powerful stuff and beautifully delivered. I became a kind of Pinsky fan after listening to that speech.
  Our graduation speaker ('76) was Carla Hills, whom I saw on the plane a couple of years ago. I told her about being in the audience on that hot day listening to her address. Her speech was very good. I remembered it although mostly I was sad that day to see my undergraduate idyll come to an end.
Re: Commencement 2014 - Kathy - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 12:35 PM)burger link Wrote:[quote author=TreeWeird link=topic=9503.msg83174#msg83174 date=1391539107]I glanced through the list, and I was going to write something like "we'll need about 60 straight years of women speakers to get to an even sex ratio."
Here is a list by year:
http://library.stanford.edu/spc/university-archives/stanford-history/commencement-addresses
But then I counted. We'd actually need 101 straight years. Ouch.
[/quote]
My class had a woman speaker Carla Hills, Jerry Ford's secretary of housing & urban development. We all got sunburned listening to her in Frost Amphitheater. I can't remember a single word of her speech, but my mom remarked afterward that it was impressive.