Harvard Commencement humor

Speakers making funny at the 365th Commencement

Rashida Jones
Photograph by Jim Harrison

Rashida Jones ’97, College Class Day speaker, on selling a script for a $16-million movie, only to watch the deal fall through and then making the movie with her partner, for $840,000—“almost a year of Harvard tuition.”


Sheryl Sandberg
Photograph by Stu Rosner

Chief Marshal Sheryl Sandberg ’91, M.B.A. ’95, COO of Facebook, representing the twenty-fifth reunion class at the Commencement day luncheon spread in Widener Library: “I am so happy to be here because this is one of the very few things I get to do that Mark Zuckerberg does not. I worked really hard to graduate from Harvard—twice. And then I go work for someone who didn’t graduate once.”

Fiftieth reunioner Daniel Brooks ’66, waiting with classmates to process into Tercentenary Theatre for the afternoon oratory, where he was “looking forward to a Spielberg spiel.”

Latin Salutatorian Anne Ames Power ’16 offered a “dictionary” of Harvardian terms (with English translation tucked into the Morning Exercises programs for the unschooled). Teasing out meanings, she explained: “[A]t Harvard a ‘concentration’ can be defined as ‘an individual course of study’ as well as ‘what you lack in Friday morning class’”—and added the senior-year revelation “that ‘thesis’ can be a noun, a verb, and a state of being.”

You might also like

NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim to Speak at Harvard in June

The American Navy SEAL, born to immigrants, is a doctor and a space traveler.

Conan O’Brien Named Harvard’s 2026 Commencement Speaker

The comedian, host, and 1985 graduate will deliver remarks at the May 28 ceremony. 

Harvard Commencement 2025

Harvard passes a test of its values, yet challenges loom.

Most popular

The Artemis II Mission Included a Harvard Space Medicine Experiment

Wyss Institute researchers are observing how human bone marrow responds to radiation and microgravity.

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

The federal government has launched unprecedented actions against the University. Here's a guide.

FAS Plans Administrative Overhaul

Facing financial pressures, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences seeks ways to streamline.

Explore More From Current Issue

A woman in a black blazer holds a bottle of beer.

Introductions: Mallika Monteiro

A conversation with a beer industry executive

Firefighters battling flames at a red building, surrounded by smoke and onlookers.

Yesterday’s News

How a book on fighting the “Devill World” survived Harvard’s historic fire.