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

Harvard Commencement 2025

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

Alumni Cheer on Harvard

At Alumni Day, ringing endorsements of Harvard’s fight

Paula Johnson at Harvard Medical School Convocation

Amid distrust of science, Paula Johnson tells medical and dental graduates to be “citizen-physicians.”

Most popular

What Trump Means for John Roberts’s Legacy

Executive power is on the docket at the Supreme Court.

Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?

Historian Alexander Keyssar on why the unpopular institution has prevailed 

The Teen Brain

It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them...

Explore More From Current Issue

An illustrative portrait of Justice Roberts in a black robe, resting his chin on his hand.

What Trump Means for John Roberts’s Legacy

Executive power is on the docket at the Supreme Court.

Aerial view of a landscaped area with trees and seating, surrounded by buildings and parking.

Landscape Architect Julie Bargmann Transforming Forgotten Urban Sites

Julie Bargmann and her D.I.R.T. Studio give new life to abandoned mines, car plants, and more.