In 1987, Oscar Arias Sanchez won the Nobel Peace Prize after facilitating a peace agreement to end civil wars that were rampant in Latin America. He was President of Costa Rica from 1986 through 1990, and just last year got re-elected to that post. On May 17, 1991, he addressed the graduating seniors of Washington University as Commencement speaker.

The choice of Tim Russert as Commencement speaker represents another selection in a disappointing trend that appears to be emerging. For the past four years, seniors have been treated to uninspiring politicians or uninspiring pundits as their speaker at graduation. Moreover, the decision on who should be the commencement speaker has been made without consulting the senior class. In the future, this certainly needs to change.

After five years of political speakers, from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright to former United Kingdom Prime Minister John Major, it is time for a new message from our commencement speakers. Future speakers could be social activists or business leaders instead of politicians. In the past, the University has selected speakers that have fit this mold and would be a good benchmark when considering future speakers. For example, Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, was the 1992 Commencement Speaker. Like Sanchez, she won the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism. The next year’s speaker, Peter Raven, was and still is the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and won the U.S. National Medal of Science in 2000. Also in 2000, Julian Bond, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee was the commencement speaker. Choices like these are more inspiring than a speaker like Tim Russert, and when the University is looking at future speakers, they should consider more speakers like the ones listed above instead of more political figures.

Furthermore, seniors should be a greater part of the selection process for commencement speaker. The speech is addressed to graduating seniors, and it is meant to inspire these seniors. It is unlikely that seniors would have chosen Russert as their graduation speaker, even if they knew of his accomplishments beforehand. By letting seniors have more of a hand in picking the commencement speaker, a speaker who means more to seniors would likely be chosen. Russert, meanwhile, is next to meaningless for a large portion of this year’s senior class, and he may still be even after commencement.

When Tim Russert spoke at Harvard’s Commencement in 2005, some now-graduates played “Tim Russert Bingo.” Responding to the fact that Russert consistently gave similar addresses to all of the graduating classes that he spoke to, those seniors shouted “Bingo!” whenever Russert repeated key phrases from other speeches. The choice of commencement speaker should be one that seniors will remember, not an excuse to play bingo. As many commencement speakers may have said in the past, a change in direction is needed.

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