Ivy commencement speakers vary in prestige

While the Ivy League has traditionally featured some of the biggest names in Commencement speakers, headliners seem few and far between in this year's crop. Dartmouth College scored perhaps the biggest coup of all, convincing President Clinton to come to Hanover, N.H. to address graduating seniors, parents and alumni in June. The governing boards of the Harvard Corporation -- the school's board of trustees -- and Harvard's Board of Overseers went international, choosing Czech Republic President and playwright Vaclav Havel. Students at Harvard are not involved in the Commencement speaker selection process. However, they select their own Class Day speaker -- an honor extended to University Law Professor Lani Guinier last year. At Princeton University, president Harold Shapiro always gives the Commencement speech. National Endowment for the Arts Chairperson Jane Alexander -- the University's Commencement speaker -- will be Princeton's featured Baccalaureate speaker, she added. Brown, Columbia and Cornell have not yet announced their Commencement speakers for this year. However, staffers at the The Cornell Daily Sun said president Frank Rhodes may be asked to give the address since he is leaving the school this summer. And Columbia Daily Spectator News Editor Samantha Nicosia said NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw has accepted an invitation to speak at Columbia College's Class Day. The invitation was extended by the senior class marshals, a governing board with about 25 members elected by the class. Brown is the only Ivy League school that does not include dignitaries in its Commencement program, Brown Daily Herald Executive Editor Marshall Miller said. Instead, approximately 1,400 graduating seniors "and a crowd of parents and alumni that reaches into the thousands" hear from two student speakers. Miller also said a committee of students, faculty and staff select the speakers, looking for students who can offer diverse opinions and a unique perspective on Brown, delivered in an "interesting, accessible and well-said" manner. The senior class at Yale University usually invites prominent alumni back to campus for Class Day, since the school does not offer honorary degrees or speaking fees to dignitaries who participate in the ceremony. Yale President Richard Levin will speak at Commencement exercises, said Senior Class Treasurer Adam Marks. This year, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke -- a 1971 Yale graduate and a Rhodes Scholar -- has been tapped to talk, disappointing students who were hoping for someone similar in stature to alumni George Bush and Jodie Foster, both of whom spoke at recent Class Days. Marks said the senior class council, officers and Class Day co-chairs worked together to find a suitable speaker by distributing surveys to the entire senior class. This year, they also tried to find "someone who is a Yale affiliate who could speak to the importance of this year" -- the 25th year of coeducation at Yale and the 25th anniversary of the school's non-residential African-American House.