It’s the Message That Matters

If our biggest concern in selecting a commencement speaker is finding somebody famous to pat our graduates on the back, we are missing a tremendous opportunity to learn as a community. Similarly, if our biggest concern with a chosen speaker is their policy record, we are also missing an opportunity to learn as a community. Both perspectives focus on the person at the podium when what truly matters is the message they deliver. A commencement speech, as its name implies, should be a beginning, a thought-provoking call to action that prepares graduates for the world they are entering. As such, the university should strive to appoint a speaker whose ideas merit spreading.
Will Michael Bloomberg give a good commencement speech? As a man who was once in charge of the largest city in the U.S. and the driving force behind many controversial policies, it seems to me that he has quite the interesting story to tell. The question that remains is how he chooses to tell it. If Mr. Bloomberg were to use the commencement stage as a political platform to deliver the same message he could from the mayor’s office, then the decision to appoint him would have been a poor one. However, if he were to draw upon his history and impart a life lesson that outgoing graduates have yet to learn, he will have made a good commencement speaker, independent of his policy history.
Regardless of the university’s choice, if we as individuals reject a speaker because of their past actions, we do ourselves a disservice. While past action is predictive of present beliefs, it is not constitutive of them, and we should be wary of dismissing someone’s message before hearing it ourselves. Part of learning is coming to understand how individuals frame their own experiences and incorporating that knowledge into our own self-reflection. We may disagree with individuals on matters of policy and principle, but we can always learn from their narratives.
Apart from commencement, when else do we gather an entire Harvard graduating class to learn a lesson? We don’t need someone to repeat to us the same old platitudes; the right speaker is one who sparks new and exciting dialogue within the graduating class. It’s no secret that our alums go on to take positions of social power, and part of our goal should be to enable them to have the most positive impact from these positions.
Bloomberg’s appointment has definitely aroused controversy; however, this May, he comes to Harvard playing the role of commencement speaker, and we should judge him as such. The discussion about his policy decisions is an important one to have, but amidst the heat of our debate we should not miss the chance to learn from the story he has to tell.