Lessons learned in selecting speaker

Author: Brian Fung

The College has now entered the second stage of its yearly search for a graduation speaker, a member of the committee responsible for the job said this week. Though it refused to disclose the names of potential candidates for privacy reasons, the Committee promised an engaging show this coming May.

Composed of two seniors and two faculty members, as well as two representatives from the Board of Trustees, the team began the process of selecting a speaker this fall by forming a preliminary list of candidates nominated by the College community. Currently, the list is under review and will be narrowed before it is forwarded to the College president, who is responsible for extending formal invitations to those distinguished individuals the College hopes to attract to campus.

"This year, we received a list of well over 50 people," said ReNard Rogers '07, one of the two student representatives on the committee. Despite the large pool of candidates, however, Rogers stressed that not all speakers are created equal, and that some suggestions were quickly tabled in favor of others.

In an effort to shed what light he could on the normally airtight selection process, Rogers said, "Political figures tend to divide the student body. We try to stay away from them."

In addition, the nature of a candidate's pre-existing relationship to the College remains a major criterion for speaker selection.

"We want to have someone on stage that can reflect every single person's experience at Middlebury," said Rogers, explaining that a speaker with an affiliation to the College would contribute to class unity - a key objective in light of each senior's individual successes.

According to John Emerson, secretary of the College and administrative liaison to the committee, a potential speaker who holds past ties to the College routinely takes priority over a nominee whose link is not immediately apparent or is nonexistent.

"It takes a lot of lead time, and a lot of planning, but the College prefers somebody with a connection," he said.

Emerson cited a case last year in which the College ultimately failed to recruit one of their top-choice candidates.

"This person was well known in the general field of entertainment and in the student community," he said. Emerson declined to divulge the name of the nominee because of the sensitivity surrounding the issue, but attributed the College's inability to procure the celebrity as its speaker to its failure to aggressively court the candidate far enough in advance.

"We worked for many, many weeks to bring this person," said Emerson, "but they were already heavily scheduled and weren't able to make the commitment."

According to Rogers, the committee has intensified its efforts this year. One promising candidate may have been in contact with the College for months. On a more radical note, the committee even considered a proposal to alter the graduation format to accommodate a more artisticallyoriented commencement speech.

"We were thinking maybe a poem or a song," Rogers said, but explained the committee's decision not to pursue the suggestion, saying, "We want someone who can speak to us and motivate us as the next generation of Middlebury alums."

Candidates will be contacted by President of the College Ronald Liebowitz between now and February, when plans for the commencement speaker's appearance will be confirmed.

Speaking as a senior, Rogers said, "I'm pretty pumped. I feel like I paid my dues at Midd and I'm ready to reap the rewards."