Don't Forget Your Sunscreen

Three years ago, Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, was announced as the principal speaker at Harvard's 345th Commencement. After asking "Harold who?," spoiled Harvard students, accustomed to being addressed by heads of state and Nobel laureates, questioned the selection of a bio medical researcher as the featured guest at their graduation. Poor Dr. Varmus was ridiculed in campus publications; his likeness even made a regular appearance in a student comic strip in this newspaper.

By contrast, the reaction to the selection of Federal Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan to speak at this June's Commencement has been rather quiet. None of my fellow seniors seems terribly upset by Greenspan's selection. No one denies that Greenspan is one of the most powerful people in the world today. (In a previous column, I compared his influence to that of International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, well before Greenspan's selection was announced.) But no one seems terribly excited to hear Greenspan either. This is worrisome, given that the audience at the address-technically separate from Commencement exercises and instead the keynote speech at the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association--is notoriously sparse, much like a Sanders Theatre lecture the day before break.

Simply put, as an interesting and inspirational speaker, Greenspan just doesn't match up to the world leaders and Cold War heroes who have paraded through the Yard in recent years. The conventional wisdom is that Greenspan will not--in fact, cannot--say anything of import, because if he did, it would cause significant shocks to the world economy. In a now-famous incident in 1996, Greenspan commented that gains in the stock market at the time might have been caused by "irrational exuberance." In response to his skeptical comments, markets around the world tumbled.

Since then, Greenspan appears to have learned his lesson, perhaps too well. In a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee in January, Greenspan was asked, among other things, about the soaring value of Internet stocks. His comments were so ambiguous that the major newspapers didn't know what to think. Headlines the next morning ranged from "Frenzy for Internet Stocks Gains Backer--Greenspan" (Washington Post) to "Fed Head Warns Against 'Net-Stock Hype" (New York Post) to "Asked About Internet Issues, The Fed Chairman Shrugs" (New York Times). Of course, all the major stock market indexes showed sharp gains that day.

Aside from Greenspan's personality, I also question the selection of an economic policymaker, whose popularity is fickle and whose accomplishments, like those of most politicians, are not likely to stand the test of time. Would an economist have been selected 10 years ago, shortly after Black Monday and on the eve of a major recession? I doubt it. By contrast, Ralph Ellison (Commencement speaker in 1974) will always be a great novelist, Oscar Arias (speaker in 1988) will always be a crusader for peace and Colin Powell (speaker in 1993) will always be a military hero.

Harvard doesn't excel in the diversity of its speakers; the vast majority of Commencement speakers in recent decades have been world political leaders. One of things I dislike about the Institute of Politics' seeming monopoly on big-name speeches at Harvard is that the majority of outside leaders who come through campus are politicians, as if they are the only noteworthy people and role models in the world. We need more scholars, artists and true heroes at Commencement. Or how about a controversial figure? I suppose that in order to withstand Harvard's rigorous standards for selection, most Commencement speakers tend to be rather non-controversial and, as a result, are often uninteresting.

I suppose after Nelson Mandela's visit and speech last September, any other speaker was bound to be a disappointment. For many of us in the class of '99, sitting in the front section in Tercentenary Theater at that historic event, it was better than any Commencement. Maybe it was the start of school or the warm fall air, but there was a palpable electricity in the air that day. And none of us will ever forget Mandela's wit, remarkable for a man of his age and with his extraordinary life behind him, or the scene of him hoisting his honorary diploma in the air.

In all fairness, I don't know what Alan Greenspan will say on June 10. Perhaps he will give a humorous or enlightening speech. Perhaps he will drone on and on about economic policy. I hope others in my class will return after the morning exercise, give him a chance and hear what he has to say. Let's just hope he doesn't say anything about sunscreen. Andrew S. Chang '99 is a neurobiology concentrator in Kirkland House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.