It’s official: Christopher Reeve (a.k.a. Superman) will be giving the commencement address at spring graduation.
Nothing against Reeve, he’s a wonderful person who has suffered a great tragedy, but it is time to get a commencement speaker who makes sense.
The six candidates for this year’s honor were: the aforementioned Reeve, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Jimmy Carter and Tom Brokaw. There’s something wrong with that list. All except one, former president Carter, are in the entertainment industry.
Commencement is not the Academy Awards. It is a time for graduating students to look back at their college experience as they prepare to embark into the real world.
Any commencement speaker at Ohio State should be someone involved with academia, a prominent public figure or someone with an OSU connection.
Since Bill Cosby spoke in 2001, most candidates for commencement speaker have been in the entertainment business. The scramble to find a celebrity to speak at commencement has left this year’s graduating seniors with a speaker who has no connection to OSU and, while he may have a lot to say about overcoming obstacles in life, he knows nothing about the modern academic experience.
Most celebrities have nothing important to say. Most of what they do say is self-serving and often pointless.
If the people who decided that OSU must have a celebrity speak at commencement, why not get a celebrity with an OSU connection? Jack Nicklaus, Patricia Heaton or Richard Lewis are famous people who would be able to connect with the student body at OSU and give a wildly entertaining speech.
Ultimately, though, the speaker should have something to say about higher education. Students don’t sit through four or five years of college to be sent off by a speech from Pauly Shore.
There are countless alumni of OSU who have “done something great,” and they have far more to say than any Hollywood celebrity. Commencement is a celebration of the college experience. The speaker should be a person who has something to say about this.
Let the celebrities save their pointless pontificating for “Inside the Actors’ Studio.” Commencement needs to be an OSU affair, and the selection committee needs to wake up and realize this.
