What makes a good commencement address?

‘Tis the season for venerated commencement speakers to dispense pearls of wisdom to the future leaders of America. Unfortunately those waiting graduates are much more interested in getting that diploma and getting on with life than in anything a speaker might have to say.

Nevertheless commencement addresses are a traditional part of the ceremony and so the speaker must decide how to fulfill his or her role in the most efficient and entertaining manner.

I heard two commencement addresses recently. One was fairly good; the other was torturous. Since I’ve spent the past 20 years in education, I’ve heard more commencement speeches than the average person so I thought I’d share a couple of observations about how commencement speakers can avoid subjecting graduates and their families to one final boring lecture.

Keep your role in perspective.

Let’s be honest. The primary value a commencement speaker lends to a graduation is his or her name on the invitations. The more prestigious the speaker, the more panache the ceremony will have. Parents and graduates can brag about the president, the business icon or the celebrity who will speak at graduation. It’s a feel-good moment that enhances the school’s reputation. Lesser-known speakers with impressive credentials also add status to the event.

Unless speakers happen to be the president or someone else in a position to make a major announcement, however, there’s nothing that can be said that will be truly memorable or life-changing. So once you’ve lent your name to the event, follow through with a short, engaging speech that will help rather than harm your reputation.

Do your research on the graduating class and the institution.

Experienced speakers probably have a graduation stump speech but should tailor remarks to their audience. Find out what is unique about this class or what graduates are doing after graduation. Ask about the names of people significant to the history of the institution or the community and work those into the speech. Let your audience know that this place and this moment is the only time that you can give this speech.

Going back to my recent graduations, what distinguished the good speaker from the horrid one? Let me count the ways: energy, brevity, humor, organization and some connection with the audience.

The good speaker, who happened to be George Will, opened with a joke about how commencement addresses should be brief. “Brevity is not only the soul of wit and the essence of lingerie,” Will said. “It is also mandatory for commencement addresses.” He then threw in a Churchill quote for good measure: “The head cannot absorb more than the seat can endure.”

Will spoke for 19 minutes with frequent dashes of humor as he told the graduates ways to think about problems — some problems are the result of American achievements, others have no solution and still others are not really problems at all. He then concluded his speech with the upbeat advice, “Never be pessimistic about America.”

Will was thoughtful, easy to listen to and brief. The only way he could have improved his speech would have been to make more specific some remarks about The Citadel. He did acknowledge that the college is one of the few institutions uniquely devoted to national service. Other than that, his speech would apply to any graduating class anywhere.

(The full speech is within The Citadel’s commencement video. It begins at about 1:20.)

The other speech I recently heard was about 25 minutes long but seemed to last two hours. The speaker read his remarks s-l-o-w-l-y and deliberately in a monotone voice. After he had droned on for five minutes, I wished that someone had given him a Hersey bar before the processional so we would have had the benefit of a sugar-high.

Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances: he might have been exhausted or preoccupied with some personal event. Nevertheless, he totally failed to connect with the audience. The good points of his speech were lost through his sleep-inducing delivery. Had he looked up from his deliberate reading and noticed the number of people getting up to take bathroom or cigarette breaks, he would have realized that he was violating one of John Wesley’s fundamental rules: do no harm.

Graduations, like graduation speakers, come and go with little that is memorable beyond the impact the diploma has on the graduate and his family. Commencement speakers would do well to remember that they should not only give an engaging speech; they must also help build momentum and the sense of celebration over the reason for the ceremony — the awarding of diplomas.