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

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

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

Harvard Honors Its Oldest Alumni

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

Most popular

An animal’s journey from grief to love shows how much humans need each other, too.

The Harvard Kennedy School professor has led inquiries into the polarizing conflicts in the Middle East.

Phase A of the Allston project includes a hotel, residences, and a two-acre greenway.

Explore More From Current Issue

Racing driver gives a thumbs up from inside a car, wearing a helmet and safety gear.

Harvard graduate and NASCAR racer Patrick Staropoli on pedals, attention, and fearlessness.

Two figures stand before a large, colorful pixelated face against a yellow background.

Harvard scientists identify hundreds of genes under selective pressure.

A blue refrigerator covered with animal pictures, notes, and drawings, surrounded by greenery.

An animal’s journey from grief to love shows how much humans need each other, too.