H 32°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°Greta Van Susteren before she got her own show. One of the producers of “Airplane!” The deputy chief of staff to President Bartlet on The West Wing. The black Wizard of Oz. The man who turned his head while Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa competed over who could shoot up the most ‘roids.
This sundry of personalities have all stood in front of a crowd of graduating seniors and their families at the Kohl Center. They’re all University of Wisconsin graduates and they were all paid nothing for their appearances. They’re the most notable commencement speakers of the past 15 years, and to say they don’t need an introduction would be an embarrassment to the clich�.
Now let’s try a different list.
Bob Woodruff. Bill Clinton. Robert Pinsky. John Mellencamp. Brian Williams. John McCain. Dan Rather.
Those are some of the big-name speakers that have appeared at commencements at the University of Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana University, Penn State and Ohio State over the past 10 years. We found out last week that you can add President Barack Obama to that list — he’s scheduled to give the commencement address in Ann Arbor on May 1.
UW has never been able to get a speaker nearly as big as some of these other schools — and while Scott Van Pelt may have been appropriate in 2007, we imagine that hearing a speech from the former “main proprietor” of L’Etoile or the founder of the organization Humorology donates money to would be a pretty lame way to end your college career.
A university is often able to get a big-name speaker through some kind of connection. Maybe they’re an alumnus or they’re a native to the state. Sometimes it just works out — Johns Hopkins got Al Gore in 2005 because a trustee’s wife used to work for him.
But in the end, you usually have to pay them.
Secretary of the faculty David Musolf, who organizes finding the speaker along with support from senior class officials, argues that not paying an honorarium is appropriate because it saves UW money and ensures the speaker has close ties to Madison. But all these ties have gotten UW are people like State Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who bailed the university out of finding somebody else in 1999, 2003 and 2008.
It’s disheartening to us that UW has to pay a big name in order to get them to come to Madison and accept an honorary degree — but we think it’d be even more disheartening to tell our proud grandparents that the speaker at our graduation will be a guy who founded a nonprofit that gives underprivileged children the chance to have a portrait of them painted by a professional artists. Yeah, that was a speaker.
We mean no offense to any of the previous speakers. The transcripts of many of their speeches are on the university’s website and some of them are humorous, rousing and even inspiring. But others not so much.
Wisconsin is supposed to provide one of the finest undergraduate educations in the nation, and the culmination of that deserves a lot more attention than UW seems to give it. Case in point: the speakers for the May 2008 graduation weren’t even announced until 10 days before the ceremony. Come on.
Therefore, we recommend a small increase in segregated fees to pay for an honorarium for the spring commencement each year. A fee of $2 per student per year would garner more than $80,000 a year — more than enough to land a name that will be impressive to all members of the community — and the student body would be OK with paying $8 over four years to ensure a high profile visit.
Doing this will also allow for more students to take part in picking the speaker, something that simply doesn’t happen on a large scale right now. Suggestions could be taken by the Associated Students of Madison, and together with Bascom administrators, they could work out a deal. As opposed to now, when four people, who answer to no one, make the decision.
The only caveat is that getting a paid speaker to do more than one ceremony might be difficult. Making one large commencement (where you don’t read names) at Camp Randall would eliminate this problem and would be in line with what many schools do — including Michigan.
In the meantime, we’ve got some recommendations for May’s speaker. But you didn’t bother to ask any of us, or most students for that matter, so… screw it.
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Grad students don’t give a crap about who the commencement speaker is. Please don’t raise our seg fees to pay for another undergraduate nicety.
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Understandable. Seg fees can be raised for just undergraduates, correct? Somebody out there who knows more about this than I do, help?
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Currently, we do not a differential segregated fee system. The only ones who pay less are half time students. Still, a two dollar fee could be reasonably assessed elsewhere and still collected to bring in a big name speaker.
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Another fee? Sure, you suggest it only be $2, but those kind of fees end up being slippery-slopes to larger fees being tacked on in the future. After a while, they begin to add up. What about those who chose not to attend the ceremony? Why should they have to help pay for something they won’t even be participating in?
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The slippery slope argument is a fallacy. Students would still reserve the right to control those fees (and the speaker for that matter), and its highly unlikely that it would grow largely out of control. Taxation and all forms of fees are subject to the same argument you are making, so I would speculate that you would also advocate for a large part of tuition being pay as you go.
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Yeah, and see where the “control” has gotten us? Student finance groups that are out of touch, an incompetent student government body, and paying for campus buildings that aren’t totally necessary or within our means. Yes, let’s have them take more money. So are we now going to have a referendum as to who we’re going to have give the speech?
Highly unlikely it would grow out of control? Have you been living under a rock the past few years? County, State, and Federal governments that keep tacking on new fees, taxes, and government pay raises…yeah, those in “control” of the student fees sure have great examples to model and follow.
And the pay-as-you go is already happening. College of Engineering student surcharges, extra fees for Business students…until Humanities majors are paying the same as the rest of the campus, you won’t convince me otherwise.
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Most undergrads don’t give a crap about the speaker either.
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honestly. just give me the degree and lets party. could care less about the ceremony for this very reason
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Hush. We’re getting someone good this year.
-Someone who may or may not know.
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It is indeed true that I was not paid to speak at Wisconsin and would never in a million years charge to do so..but there is one error: I did anchor a news show at the time I was selected and had done so for several years at CNN at the time.
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go chase vandersloot!
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Hey - your show sucks, and I wouldn’t fuck you with a brown bag on your head or my own.
-Bill O.
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even though I may disagree with your beliefs, I am proud that your an alumni of the J school. We need somebody out there.
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Reverend Wright v. Don Imus: Dual speeches given at the same time! Add this to the laundry list of reasons UW-Madison gets little respect from the East coast/West coast/South
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I go where I get the most money. It’s the same way I do my work in the Whitehouse. Whatever corporation or lobbyist is the highest bidder to buy me off, well they get the perks then.
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I’m just happy we’re talking about commencement. Bring on the summertime, baby!! Let’s go for a pitcher on the terrace.
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“Bob Woodruff. Bill Clinton. Robert Pinsky. John Mellencamp. Brian Williams. John McCain. Dan Rather, Barack Obama.”
Hells Bells - I’d pay to NOT here these (ugh) people!!!!!!
As J. C. Watts! There is a man with a message everyone should here!
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I’d pay to “here” you didn’t get a degree from this university.
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It’s not about whether or not the attendees care who the speaker is; it’s about the image and statement to the higher ed community and the general public when we could bring in top-quality speakers. To boost our image among peer institutions and the greater higher ed community, we should be willing to pay a modest amount per student for a better speaker. ($4 per student could bring in $150,000 - plenty for a top notch presenter)
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Why not just charge everyone admission? Heck, I’m kind of surprised that the Athletic Dept. hasn’t done so already, since we are using one of their facilities. A ticket cost would more than pay for your precious speaker. Or, tack some kind of surcharge to the cap & gown rental…that way those not attending the ceremony wouldn’t be stuck paying for part of something they aren’t even going to partake in.
Seriously though, how many of you will actually remember who your graduation speaker was or what they even said, 2, 3, 10…years down the line? Is it really THAT important?
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As someone who has been involved with commencement, I’ve attended every ceremony between for four years - 28 in total. If you’ve never been to a graduation ceremony, let me clue you in on something: There are only four parts of the ceremony that people care about. In order of appearance: The “Star Spangled Banner”, hearing your name called as your shake the Chancellors hand, “On, Wisconsin”, and “Varsity”.
The Chancellor opens the ceremony with a speech. Biddy’s speeches are heartfelt and often change from one ceremony to the next, but are rather long. John Wiley gave the same speech at every ceremony. The first time I heard him speak, I thought it was a recording. At least it was short?
Someone from the UWAA and a regent also speak. These are often long winded, poorly crafted speeches with lackluster delivery.
But there are two more speakers: A student representative and the keynote speaker that gives the Charge to the Undergrads. The student speaker is almost always awful at best. He/she spends much of the allotted time droning on and on about drinking/late nights/partying/some other alcohol related UW cliche. On rare occasion, the student speaker delivers a thoughtful, reflective speech that causes the audience to pay attention and listen.
The keynote speaker is also hit or miss. Many of the speakers are actually fairly decent. Chief Justice Abrahamson is probably the most boring of the lot. However, on the other hand, Andre DuShields delivered the same speech four times during spring ceremonies a few years ago. Every delivery was electrifying, earning two or three standing ovations.
Here’s how the show ends: Degrees are conferred to undergrads. Everyone’s name is read as they shake the Chancellor’s hand. Everyone in the audience pays attention to this right up until they hear their child’s name called. Then they check out again. Cue “On, Wisconsin!” and “Varsity.” Everyone pays attention to these tunes for the obvious reasons.
But let’s face it: Paying a big name to come speak doesn’t guarantee a great speech. It guarantees a big name at the ceremony. You want Bill Clinton? I’m betting $80,000 won’t come close to funding his appearance at four ceremonies. For the right fee, anyone will speak at commencement. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that their speech will offer any real insight or speak to the core values and ideals of our university.
If your measure of the quality of your UW education is based on who the speaker at your commencement ceremony is, perhaps you should go to another school. All of the speakers are UW alumni. All of them have achieved success in their lives in some way, whether through charity, entertainment, public service, or scholarship. The message is that these people have gone on to do great things with their UW degrees.
Ultimately, isn’t that the message that should motivate us?
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A big name speakers always gets the attention of the national media which is a good plug for the school. Why do Wisconsin people have no understanding of marketing and brand building??
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Ok. So, let’s go ahead and raise seg fees to pay for this. But who is going to explain to the state tax payers that it isn’t their tax dollars paying for this when they find out we’re shelling out $100,000s for speakers each semester?
Your average citizen isn’t aware of the difference between seg fees/tuition dollars/tax dollars. Instead, they see a bottom line and assume it’s all coming out of their pockets.
In theory, we could only have one ceremony. But, is that one ceremony per year? Or per semester?
We used to have one ceremony until former Chancellor Donna Shalala changed the format in the early 90s - a time when we had significantly fewer students, and therefore fewer graduates. Previously, the ceremony took place at Camp Randall. Just a few problems with that situation:
My point is this: We don’t need big names at commencement to market ourselves. We’ve sent more graduates into Teach for America and the Peace Corps than almost any other school in the country. More of our MBAs are Fortune 500 CEOs than from any other school. We have excellent programs in medicine/public health, engineering, business, and foreign language, among others. Plus there’s Badger Athletics.
We’re well publicized. Our university’s reputation isn’t in question. Why do we need to be known as “the school that had (insert name here) speak at graduation”?
We don’t need to pay through the nose for a speaker that could be of dubious quality and whose message doesn’t necessarily reflect the ideas or traditions of UW.
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Another article talked about how UW lacks respect on a national spotlight and this article just confirms it. Why is it only business students understand how important name connotation is. You can go to the best University in the world rankings wise but if everyone discredits it, then it doesn’t mean anything. Have good speakers come, who cares what they say, and yes it is a “plug” for marketing. When I heard O’bama was going to Michigan I automatically conjured up an image of prestige surrounding Michigan without consideration of their rankings. Being cheap doesn’t pay dividends.
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UW is the cheapest public ivy school I’ve ever known thus far. They’re brining James Kass to the 2010 commencement to speak Sat. 15 May onwards.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Dunc will speak only for the 10am ceremony on Sat. May 15. which is “OK” but not just for one commnecement.
Wisconsin, seriously? Can you get any cheaper?
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I vote feingold