Just came back from DS’s graduation at College of Charleston and even he was cringing at the speech. Sometimes trying to be funny can backfire, big time.
Anyone have a truly inspirational, memorable speech?
My DS just graduated from Northeastern University, The commencement speaker was Aimee Mullins - actress, model, athlete. She is a double amputee and her speech was very uplifting and inspirational.
I’ll be able to tell you after Sunday…
Heard the Virginia Tech speaker, Gov Ralph Northam, was good.
Yes! D1’s commencement speaker back in 2008, JK Rowling, was fantastic. She was best graduation speech I have ever heard.
Class Day was the day before commencement, and the Class Day speaker was Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. The ominous clouds of the Great Recession were gathering at that point, and the message of Bernanke’s speech was that the coming recession wasn’t going to be all that bad. WRONG!
Justin Trudeau spoke at NYU graduation today. Would love to know how that was!!
Garry Trudeau spoke at my law school commencement in 1977 (Joanie Caucus was “in” my class), and he was wonderful. I’ll be interested to hear the reviews of Mindy Kaling for this year at Dartmouth.
Syracuse got an awesome speaker.
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a20682124/kathrine-switzer-syracuse-university-commencement/
Former vice president Joe Biden was my daughter’s graduation speaker, and he was absolutely fantastic. I can’t say enough good things about how warm, charming, insightful, and respectful he was.
Our D’s college (within the larger U) is a combination of agriculture and life sciences (which, oddly, includes fashion design and merchandising.) The speaker was a “Distinguished Alum” who had been a horticulture major. She spoke about her grandfather’s advice about growing a garden (and of course, how it applied to living your life.). It was nice, if bland. We were joking that next year’s Distinguished Alum would be a Poultry Science major and he would have to analogize the grads’ futures to what goes on in a chicken processing plant.
I’m one who prefers when colleges have alumni who speak at graduation rather than just big name speakers they contract with. I like hearing how previous students have gone on and did well with their lives. It’s more inspiring than most usual speeches.
I’m probably in the minority though.
@thumper1 Justin’s speech is available online if you do a search. 
The speaker I remember most was Capt Sully. I have heard many. I just admired him and found him a nice, quiet, confident guy. He spoke at S’s smaller engineering grad ceremony. Can’t remember names of other speakers.
One of my best friends is headed to the USNavel Academy graduation at Annapolis for her niece and the POTUS is a commencement speaker. Some of the family are very excited, some considered not going.
I watched Oprah’s speech to the USC Annenberg graduates and of course, it was amazing. I highly recommend watching it on youtube. I’ve been looking for Jake Tapper’s speech at UMass/Amherst and have not been able to find it. All three of my kids are done with college and there wasn’t a good speech in the bunch. Last year my son had Mark Zuckerberg with Joe Biden for Class day. Both were terribly disappointing.
Best grad speaker we heard…Kristen Chenowith at NC School of the Arts. She also performed with the students. She was amazing.
Saw a clip of Michael Keaton’s speech at Kent State. I want to leave you all with two words that I hope you take away from today…“I’m Batman.”
The current POTUS was my commencement speaker many many years ago around the time his Art of the Deal book came out. He arrived in a helicopter that landed on the grass fields near the commencement venue. Most of the people who I spoke to about it after the ceremony didn’t enjoy the speech then and many of us were disappointed because the prior year’s graduating class had Bill Cosby as their commencement speaker. Oh how the tides turn.
We heard Cory Booker last week at Temple’s graduation. He was wonderful - warm, passionate, very charming. He received an honorary doctorate & said he would make all the other senators call him “Dr. Booker” from now on.
CofC insists on alumni speakers. That’s who we had. She was not good.