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

Conan O’Brien headlines a star-studded cast

Harvard Honors Its Oldest Alumni

At 97 and 101, Linda Cabot Black ’51 and William “Bill” Dubey ’46 led the way on Alumni Day.

Don’t Be A ‘Solo Superhero,’ Jonny Kim Tells Harvard Alumni

The astronaut, doctor, and Navy SEAL delivered keynote remarks on Alumni Day.

Most popular

All That’s Unseen charts the Harvard graduate’s uneasy journey from Appalachia to Cambridge and back.  

In 2004, a frenzy spread across Harvard Yard in days. Four billion users later, we are only just catching up.

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

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

Explore More From Current Issue

A football player in a white jersey evades a defender in a green uniform on the field.

Despite personnel losses, Crimson captain Xaviah Bascon is upbeat about the 2026 season.

A glowing bulb shape surrounded by colorful, swirling energy lines against a blue background.

Harvard researchers achieve medical breakthroughs in cancer therapy and infection control.

A woman with curly blonde hair sits casually against a stone wall, wearing a black top and jeans.

Chloe Chapin trains her Broadway costume designer’s eye on the history of men’s fashion.