JOKE ISSUE: UN Secretary General to deliver Wharton Commencement speech

By Bryn Ferguson 03/25/15 1:55am

If Penn’s Class of 2015 was excited about this year’s commencement speaker, Wharton graduates will be even more excited to hear her boss speak at their commencement ceremony.

This weekend, it was announced that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will deliver the commencement address at Wharton’s ceremony, to be held the day before the University-wide graduation, where U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power will speak.

“When we heard that Samantha Power would be speaking at Commencement, the other Wharton administrators and I were impressed,” Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett said. “We knew we had to beat it when choosing our own speaker — so we figured, what better way than to get her boss?”

Ki-moon’s selection as Wharton Commencement speaker was a long time in the making, Penn President Amy Gutmann said.

“We had been working with Mr. Ki-moon’s staff in December to bring him to Penn for Commencement,” Gutmann said. “There were stirrings of an invite to North Korea, however, and Mr. Ki-moon had to keep his schedule relatively free of the more ‘frivolous’ commitments for the next six months.”

Provost Vincent Price said in a statement that Ki-moon will not be presented with the honorary Doctor of Laws degree Power was to receive, but will instead be awarded with an honorary Doctor of Music.

“Mr. Ki-moon already has two honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from other universities. It is a little-known fact that he was a renowned cellist as a young man in South Korea,” Price said. “We want to honor that side of him.”

Neither Gutmann nor Price would speculate as to whether Power and Ki-moon would collaborate when writing their speeches.

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