Commencement speakers are expected to give advice to graduates. But who gives advice to the speakers?
I suppose speaker selection committees do a little of that, but I can’t think of too many others who do.
But one who does come to mind is former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. And his is the best advice I’ve ever heard given to graduation speakers.
The following words may not quote Armey exactly but they're very close to what he said :
Just say a few sensible things that people with diverse opinions can agree on.
And keep it short. Five, maybe six minutes at most.
The people there didn’t come to hear you speak. They came to see someone they love graduate.
1 comments:
Good basic advice.
Invectives to "save the world from (Global Warming) (Global Cooling)(Muslim Conspiracy) (Zionist Conspiracy) (Greedy Rich)(Welfare Mothers) (Secular Humanists) (Right-Wing Christians)(fill in the blank)" strike the wrong tune.
The goal should be to inpire graduates to both look within themselves for their own identity and then to thoughtfully engage the world in a productive way that, however never turns their hearts and minds over to the control of some ideology.
Cheers
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