Two-time Orator Will Call For Fighting Injustice With Education

Stephen E. Frank ’95 is making Harvard history.

When he takes the stage this morning in Tercentenary Theater to deliver his graduate English oration, entitled “Leaving Footprints in Time,” Frank will become one of only a handful of people in the University’s history to have given such an address as both an undergraduate and graduate student.

Frank, who will receive his J.D. from Harvard Law School (HLS) today, also delivered a Commencement oration when he graduated from the College in 1995.

Chair of the Department of Classics Richard F. Thomas, who heads the Faculty committee in charge of picking the student speakers for Commencement morning, can recall only one other student who was selected twice to deliver a Commencement address.

Frank says that he is taking this opportunity to expand the message of his 1995 oration, “A Life of Learning.”

The first time around, Frank set out to preach his belief that Commencement should not mark the end of one’s education, but rather a beginning.

“Commencement is the end of our Harvard education but the beginning of our life-long education,” he says.

Although he was not very specific about the oration he will deliver today for fear of revealing too much, Frank says that he plans to exhort his classmates to put their education at the service of the fight against injustice.

“This speech is about using your education to combat injustice and to take a stand against intolerance,” he says. “As graduates of the best university in the world, we have the opportunity and the obligation to use our education to promote understanding and tolerance. When people are given an opportunity to get to know each other they can bridge divides that seem unbridgeable.”

Frank says no particular event moved him to write the speech but rather that he found his inspiration in the world around him and in his grandmother.

Friend Wendy Rockman ’95 says that during his undergraduate speech, Frank moved his audience to give his grandmother—who was sitting in the audience that day—a standing ovation. According to Rockman, the woman was an inspiration to Frank because she went back to school to become a doctor late in life.

Frank’s oration was selected from among the 27 submitted by graduate students during this year’s competition, according to Thomas.

The inspirational nature of Frank’s speech and his perspective outside the classroom are what caught the eyes of the members of the committee, Thomas says. “We are looking for a message that speaks to the class but also to a larger constituency; that has a Harvard profile but that has a universal aspect to it as well.”

Franks says he is looking forward to the speech.

“It’s a real honor to have the opportunity to speak to my fellow graduates and their families and friends,” he says. “I hope that they will be as enthusiastic about the speech as I am and that they won’t sleep through it.”

But according to those who have heard Frank’s speech, there’s no risk of that.“It’s a great speech and it seemed to the committee like a timely and good message,” Thomas says. “It is about making decisions in life and trusting one’s instincts... about figuring out what’s right and following it through.”

Frank’s relatives will be surprised to see him addressing his classmates in Tercentenary Theater today. Just as in 1995, Frank chose to keep them in the dark and surprise them with his oration.

“It was a surprise for my family in ’95,” says Frank. “And no one knows yet except my friends at HLS.”

The Man Behind the Speech

During his time at the College, Frank lived in Lowell House and concentrated in Social Studies. He was an editor of The Harvard Crimson, where he served as editorial chair in 1994.

After graduation, Frank went to Berlin for 9 months on a rotary scholarship and upon his return worked for The Wall Street Journal as a banking reporter.

“My plan was to pursue journalism for two years and then return to school to study law but the detour ended up being a little longer than that,” Frank explains. “It was important for me to spend some time in the real world...to give me a perspective outside the classroom.”

After his time as banking reporter, Frank spent three years covering technology as a reporter for CNBC and The Wall Street Journal.But in spite of his successes as a journalist, Frank wanted to enter law school.

“I had a great opportunity to travel around the world and meet some wonderful people,” he says. “But in the back of my mind was the desire to return to school and study law, which was something about which I had always felt very passionate.”

And after six years of life in the real world, Frank did make his way back to Harvard in 2001. “I love Harvard,” he says. “I had a great time as an undergraduate and I couldn’t think of a place where I’d rather study law.”Frank published a book, Net Worth: Successful Investing in the Companies That Will Prevail Through Internet Booms and Busts, in 2002.

At HLS Frank served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He is also a pre-Law tutor affiliated with Lowell House.

After graduation, Frank is planning to clerk one year for Robert Sack, a judge in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, and afterwards pursue a career in litigation.

But it won’t be easy for Frank to leave Harvard. After seven years, Cambridge has begun to feel like home. But he says he looks forward to filling his life with the new challenges that await.

“I’ll miss the people the most...and the food the least—and the late nights doing homework,” Frank says. “But I think I will be trading late nights doing homework for late nights doing clients’ work.”

—Staff writer Yailett Fernandez can be reached at yfernand@fas.harvard.edu.