in Chinese
@GMTplus7 that is unlikely to happen soon. Many conservative speakers are “disinvited.” They are rare on the commencement speech circuit. Imagine if Donald Trump gave a coomencement speech…
I don’t like commencement speakers making it about themselves and their opinions.
I expect these Spanish speaking students speak and understand English if they’re graduating from an American University. Why alienate anyone or make a commencement speech in a language a large percentage don’t speak? Why exclude or alienate anyone?
Since it’s usually the conservatives being shouted down or uninvited…Condoleezza Rice at Rutgers, why do liberal opinions matter more at graduation. Last time I checked colleges were very willing to take money from conservative parents too.
“You say that because you agree with the politics of the speakers. My head would spin at how fast your tune would change if the commencement speaker made some Right-leaning speech…”
First, I’m certainly not in agreement with Gergen most of the time and second, I don’t freak out if someone espouses beliefs I disagree with. I might think they are woefully misinformed and vehemently disagree with them, but my head would definitely not explode. I would sit politely and quietly in the audience - like most normal people would do.
Commencement ceremonies are a time of reflection, celebration, and encouragement. They are intended to honor the graduates for their accomplishments, extend thanks to those that made their journey possible (faculty, family, etc), and create a positive atmosphere to send the graduates out into the world (or at least the next step in their journey). Any commencement speaker who thinks they are there to espouse their own political beliefs that, at best, only a portion of the grads and audience may agree with or frankly care about, does a significant disservice to the event and the audience. There are many public forums appropriate for debate and consideration of competing political or otherwise sensitive topics. A graduation speech is not one of them.
If that’s what was being said (use your journalism skills to take down a particular politician, I, the speaker don’t like), then I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it anyway. The media is plenty biased as it is, no need to encourage it. And I don’t like Trump particularly, but singling him out in a commencement address was uncalled for.
It’s hard to be completely apolitical if you’re giving a speech that includes encouragement to young people heading off into the world to make a positive change. You could leave it at that, or only mention positive changes, but it seems a bit Pollyanna-ish. I would certainly understand someone mentioning he need for bright young minds to combat climate change, a world becoming more intolerant, etc.
^ Well, seeing as this person clearly isn’t tolerant, she shouldn’t preach to them about being tolerant.
I’m kind of used to the idea that a commencement speech, may be a speech not a congrats and good advice to the graduates a la high school. After all the Marshall Plan was announced at a Harvard Commencent - can’t get much more political than that. We got to hear Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn talk about “The Decline of the West”. Most of us hated the speech, but it gave us something to talk about, and I do still remember the speech which is more than you can say of most speeches!
As for the original question - I think it’s okay to have a mix of Spanish and English, but it sounds like there was so much Spanish that the English speakers felt left out. That sounds to me like an error in judgment, but I don’t think the audience reaction was appropriate.
I am at awe that somebody is actually paying attention to what is being said. They are usually so long, I just could not wait until the end, I could not bring myself to paying attention and listen.
I am in charge of Commencement for my school, but the Director is in charge of the Commencement speaker. Every year, I have a planning meeting where I remind him that “Commencement is about our students. All speakers should keep in mind that their remarks are best focused on the reason for the gathering.”
It was just a few sentences in Spanish. Video here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/boos-for-univision-anchor-who-spoke-spanish-and-criticized-trump-at-graduation.html
^ So that is what has so many people’s panties in a twist? SMH.
Commencement speakers by their very presence make a political statement, for example, when the first black commencement speaker spoke at a place like University of Mississipi that until the 1960’s kept blacks out, sends a pretty strong political message in of itself. There have been famous commencement speakers, politicians and world leaders, who have given commencement addresses that were political.
In this case, the university was featuring a successful Hispanic woman who works as a broadcast journalist, and that is a message, too, it is sending a message to hispanic students that they have hopes for the future, and it sends a message to those who somehow see hispanics as a threat that maybe, just maybe, they are barking up the wrong tree.
Personally, I think that she made a mistake singling out trump, she could have gave a speech that said something like she and the members of the audience, hispanic and non hispanic, can send a message to those stirring up hate and division by using their work in journalism and the media to highlight the facts, not the hysteria, and to counter those who present a contrived negative image of any group of people. Specifying a candidate was a mistake, she could have gone after the real issue, hate and fear, and point out that the answer to those is the truth, to speak to the truth. among other things, those concepts are not limited to any one politician, political ideal, candidate, minority group, and it leads into the idea that these battles need to be thought with ideas and speech and facts…well, at least that is what I would do.
I have been at politically charged commencements, when my sister graduated they had Al Haig as commencement speaker when he was in the Reagan administration, and his speech was not exactly “go out and give them hell”, it had a lot of references to the politics of the time…and students and faculty who weren’t happy showed their feelings, they turned their back on his speech and otherwise mounted (mostly silent) protects. I respect the right of the audience to disagree, but I suspect they were saying a lot more than “she was trash”, and to me that is more about them than the speaker shrug.
To be honest, most commencement speakers are about as interesting as the earnest high school speakers I have heard, intoning on about how this is a time when you grow as people, how you have this opportunity, thanking the parents, etc (well, okay, except one, my son was in the graduation orchestra at the school he went to, and one year this kid gave a wickedly funny speech about his years at the school, about himself, the audience ate it up), so I don’t know if I would mind controversy, better than sleeping:)
Where in the article does it say only a few words were spoken in spanish? From the NYT article
If true, it seems highly inappropriate to me.
Yeah, I wonder what the reaction would have been had a white speaker referred to the assembled graduates as the new “voice of White America”, or had a black speaker referred to the assembled graduates as the new “voice of Black America”.
I guess when it comes to inclusivity, only white people have to do it.
My D’s graduation had a student speaker in addition to the “main” speaker. She was a proud Latino (her words) and had several lines congratulating “her people” and also referenced Trump (cannot recollect if it was by name or issue/the wall/immigration). I raised my eyebrows, but it didn’t raise my ire. She also spoke several lines in Spanish and I automatically turned to the huge video monitors which had been closed captioning entire ceremony. There was no translation on the screen. My D later did say many fellow graduates felt excluded at their own graduation. But I doubt she’s thought of it since.
There’s a link in the NY Times article to a video with the portion of the speech that was in Spanish.
I don’t think the video in the article is the speeach for the journalism grads. The issue here is what she did with the journalism students.
Speech addressing COMMUNICATIONS grads, not journalism grads. The non-journalism grads felt excluded by her speech which was directed to just journalism grads.