Rudenstine Jokes With Seniors at Baccalaureate

Cap-and-gown clad seniors filled Memorial Church to hear religious messages and a humorous address by outgoing President Neil L. Rudenstine at yesterday afternoon’s baccalaureate service.

While the graduating seniors enjoyed the hour and a half of inspirational speeches, prayers and hymns from inside the church, their families sat outside on the wooden chairs under a white canopy in Tercentenary Theater and listened via the speakers set up for tomorrow’s Commencement ceremony.

Traditionally a church service in which the minister of Memorial Church delivers a parting sermon, the baccalaureate service is the second-oldest part of graduation rites. Beginning in 1806, the tradition was modified to include an address by the University president.

The service yesterday included a range of prayers read in Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic and English.

Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church Peter J. Gomes welcomed the soon-to-be-graduates to the annual event, which he described as “a way of incorporating [the seniors] into the eternal life of the institution.”

Rudenstine’s speech, which elicited chuckles from the audience, urged the seniors to “make everyday experiences more surprising.”

Yesterday afternoon marked Rudenstine’s last baccalaureate address. Since he will retire next month, he said he felt like a part of the graduating class.

“You will be leaving soon and I will not be very far behind you,” Rudenstine said.

He employed a variety of metaphors during the speech, slipping from mentions of outer space to Noah’s Ark to Lassie.

He joked that he had awarded himself an honorary degree earlier in the morning—summa cum laude in a joint concentration of social engineering, labor economics and artificial intelligence.

“We will set off united into outer space together,” he said.

Rudenstine said he remembered the lengthy and arduous process of reading over the folders of the graduating seniors when they were applying for admission more than four years ago. He creatively complimented the seniors, whom he called “the caffeine in our cappucino” and the “Jonah in our whale.”

In his joking characterization of the graduating class, he noted their “irresistable type-A tenacity” and “eccentricities that have been allowed to grow luxuriantly within these cloistered walls.”

He also indulged in some self-depracating humour, describing his difficulty in trying to compose a speech that was even more “banal” and “cliched” than last year’s address.

All joking aside, Rudenstine urged the near-graduates to make the most of all their experiences.

Rudenstine used a literary analysis of Robert Frost’s “Birches” to suggest “strategies for dealing with the most complicated, painful events in life.”

From Frost’s poem, he said, the near-graduates can learn the importance of a full understanding of their own capacities and limits.

Finally, Rudenstine urged the departing seniors to leave each experience having created something meaningful.

“Try to leave something lasting to give significance to the fact that you were here,” he said.

Rudenstine’s words as he concluded the speech seemed applicable both to the seniors and to himself.

“I hope you will return to this lovely place and think of it as a home where you will always be welcome,” he said.

—Staff writer Daniela J. Lamas can be reached at lamas@fas.harvard.edu.