Haverford's commencement to remember

Graduation addresses can be numbing in their sameness and hollow platitudes. Can you remember your graduation address? Me neither.

But the Haverford College commencement Saturday is one few people will forget.

Earlier this month, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew from giving Rutgers' commencement address and receiving an honorary doctorate after faculty and students protested the choice. No word on whether she was paid the $35,000 honorarium to appear.

Rice, as I noted in Sunday's column, already has 10 honorary doctorates. Commencements are not only important moments for graduates and their families, but huge marketing and fundraising opportunities for academic institutions.

But Rutgers' kerfuffle paled compared to Saturday's fireworks at normally quiet, Quaker Haverford. Former Princeton president William Bowen used the opportunity to castigate protestors as "immature" and "arrogant." He called the subsequent withdrawal as a speaker of Robert J. Birgeneau, former chancellor of the University of California Berkeley, a "defeat" for the Quaker college and its ideals.

Bowen received a standing ovation, as the Inquirer's Susan Snyder reported. But given that this is a liberal arts institution where there can be more opinions than students, there was also critcism of Bowen's address.

"It was an ambush," said Maud McInerney, an associate professor of English, who signed the letter to Birgeneau. "It is really unfair to shame students at their graduation. It's a captive audience. That's an abuse of power."

Perhaps, but not one people were easily forget.

--Karen Heller