’S JOURNAL COMMENCEMENT 2003

dates from the Divinity School, many of not receive in four years a single grade Commencement whom wore halos fashioned of golden under A, and to Elias Reinhold Sacks, of Confetti pipecleaners on their mortarboards, he Leverett House and the Bronx, who had thanked them “for the use of their spe- an identical grade-point average. The An omnium-gatherum of notes and cial connections this year, and I ask for last person to pull this o≠ was Lisa’s statistics, vital and otherwise just one more hour.” He got it. brother Kevin ’01, and he was the first At the Chief Marshal’s Spread for undergraduate to do it in nearly 20 years. lunch, host Mark Gearan ’78 toasted VITAL STATISTICS Zedillo, who rose to respond. “I am terri- WANDED, LANYARDED The University awarded 6,349 earned bly worried,” said Zedillo, “because today Security guards passed wands over the degrees, 11 honorary degrees, and 290 I am confirming what friends had told persons of guests entering the Yard certificates at its 352nd Com- Commencement morning, and mencement. Diplomas went the gates opened earlier than to 1,586 College students, 64 usual to allow ample time for summa cum laude. It was a cos- these safety precautions. This mopolitan throng, viz., 536 year, for the first time, stu- people took degrees from the dents and sta≠ were required Kennedy School of Govern- to wear around their necks ment, and they hailed from 70 their Harvard photo-ID cards countries on six continents. on lanyards provided to them. The lanyards bore the words WELL CONNECTED “ Com- Torrential rains dowsed Yale’s mencement 2003,” woven in commencement on May 26, white on red, and might be

and rain was predicted for STU ROSNER construed as a sort of sou- Harvard’s festival rites, when Seniors are marched to the Memorial Church after breakfast on venir. Parked on Quincy Street Ernesto Zedillo, now at Yale, Commencement day to give Rev. Peter J. Gomes a last crack at them. by was the He recommended humility and cautioned his flock about the pomp they was to receive an honorary were about to be part of: “There is less here than meets the eye.” Middlesex County Sheri≠’s degree and speak in the after- O∞ce Community Command noon. Rain did indeed fall in the early- me—that God studied at Harvard. Rain Center, a city-bus-long white vehicle morning hours. The Yard gates opened at was predicted at Harvard, and rain did with a 40-foot white mast functioning as 7 a.m., and the earliest to arrive sat in the not come, so I will take that bad news a communications backup for all the sodden chill of Tercentenary Theatre back to New Haven.” Harvard, Cambridge, state, and other (the midday temperature was 57 degrees The first drops came at 4:19 p.m., just as area police and fire agencies involved in Fahrenheit) for three hours waiting for Zedillo concluded his address. Commencement security. the formal exercises to begin. Still, no rain descended on the throng, estimated SUMMA SUMMAS MOOD MUSIC near 30,000. When in course President Each year the highest-ranking summa Harvard’s Media and Technology Ser- Summers conferred degrees upon candi- graduate of the College wins the Sophia vices employees get a workout during Freund Prize. Commencement week, ensuring that the This year two of participants can see and hear all that’s the $1,000 prizes going on. Media technician Barry Reed, were awarded: covering his first College reunion after to Lisa Beth several years of duty at the Business Schwartz ’03, of School, gave the class of 1953 something and special: a selection of ’50s musical fa- East Hills, New vorites that he compiled and played over York, who did the PA system to “fill the space” immedi- ABOUT TIME: Barred when they were at Radcliffe from Lamont, the main study library for students, these fiftieth reunioners arranged to attend a cocktail party at that library, made a conspicuous show of study, and burst into song, a bit of “The Radcliffe Revolution,” sung to the tune of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”: “We’ll put a ladies’ restroom in the basement of Lamont [three times], when the Radcliffe revolution comes!”

60 July - August 2003 FREE TIME: Fiftieth reunioners disported them- selves variously—at tennis, golf, the Kennedy Library, the Adams National Park, or perhaps an amphibious duck tour of Boston and the Charles. tions than its “Glorious Apollo.” But the sky-blue backdrop of the stage, and the warm yellow of the spotlights, drew a growing audience that applauded, yipped, and yelped enthusiastically, especially for the tour de force performance of ately before and after the class sympo- honored for their outstanding teaching. Adolph Schreiner’s “The Worried Drum- siums in Sanders Theatre. Their names are listed in the back of your mer” by percussion soloist Jason Arm- program, and I would like to ask all of strong ’03 and the traditional football MARATHON MAN them to rise.” (Twenty-six names were fight songs that end each concert and The oldest alumnus present at the annual listed.) “Ralph Waldo Emerson,” said draw a cross-generational mix of Har- meeting of the Harvard Alumni Associa- Summers, “Harvard College class of 1821, vard Band, Glee Club, and Radcli≠e tion Thursday born 200 years ago last week, knew the Choral Society members on stage for a afternoon was value of outstanding teaching. ‘Teaching,’ rousing finale. Albert Hamil- he said—and Emerson, as you know, was Comments of a semi-vintage couple, ton Gordon not a man given to understatement— overheard on the way out of Tercente- ’23, M.B.A. ’25, ‘Teaching is the perpetual end and o∞ce nary Theatre: LL.D. ’77, of of all things. [It] is the main design that She: Those pom-pom songs don’t re- New York City, shines through the sky and earth.’” ally go with the radical image. who turns 102 He: Not everyone was radical. I was in July, and had RITE PLACE FOR SIXTY YEARS erratic. Gordon come to Cam- Commencement caller William R. bridge for his Hutchison, Warren research professor of eightieth reunion. Gordon received a the history of religion in America, noted standing ovation and a tribute from Pres- from his podium that this was the sixti- ident Summers, who called him an inspi- eth anniversary of the first Commence- ration: “At the age of 80, Al Gordon ran ment held in Tercentenary Theatre. Previ- his first marathon, in London, and his ously the ceremonies took place in Sever has been a marathon of support for this Quadrangle, where the professional- University.” school degree candidates now gather.

MAIN DESIGN BEAT OF THE POM-POMS At the dinner Wednesday evening to In the mizzling damp, attendance at first honor candidates for honorary degrees, numbered in the dozens, rather than the President Summers said he wished to more usual scores, at the traditional out- recognize “another distinguished group door concert on the stage of Tercente- whose service to the University is at the nary Theatre on Wednesday evening: the core of our enterprise—those members Harvard Glee Club’s “Lamentations of of our faculty who have recently been Jeremiah” seemed more suited to condi-

FAMILY TRADITION: Eight Harvard seniors became commissioned officers at the ROTC commissioning ceremony on June 4 in Tercentenary Theatre. At right, just before the ceremony, Rear Admiral Charles L. Munns administers the oath of office to his son, Jeffrey C. Munns ’03, of Leverett House and Burke, Virginia, in the favoring presence of John Harvard.

Harvard Magazine 61