It would have been awesome to be a member of the Class of 2003…in terms of W.I.L.D., that is. With just one glance at the lineup they had during their four years at Washington University, anyone would be envious. In the spring of 2000, their freshman year, Outkast and Dispatch played. Then, in the fall of 2002 the Black Eyed Peas came, followed by Better Than Ezra in the spring of 2003.

OutKast’s quadruple-platinum fourth album “Stankonia” was released in Oct. 2000, only a few months after the hip-hop duo appeared at W.I.L.D. OutKast is one of the most successful hip-hop groups of all time. To be able to claim that you heard OutKast when they performed at your university would warrant major coolness points in my book. If only I could actually say that; too bad I was still in elementary school.

Better Than Ezra skyrocketed to number one on the charts with their first single “Good” in 1995. In the spring of 2003, the band’s most popular recent single would have been “Extra Ordinary” or “A Lifetime.” Their rock/alternative music was perfect for a spring W.I.L.D. That is not to mention their considerable discography that would have been even more popular to Wash. U. students.

If the Black Eyed Peas’ W.I.L.D. performance was anything like their performances today (think back to the Super Bowl), it must have been epic, to say the least. Why wasn’t I born a decade earlier to witness this performance?

However, it is worth noting that the Black Eyed Peas came to campus before they became the big music sensation they are today. Fergie had just joined the group in 2002, and their first hit single, “Where is the Love?” did not drop until 2003. This begs the question: Does time make the past W.I.L.D. acts seem larger than they really were? Team 31 has picked W.I.L.D. artists on the brink of success before. For example, take B.o.B (“Nothin’ on You,” “Airplanes”) who performed in the spring of 2009, a year before his debut album was released. From Grammys to MTV Video Music Awards to American Music Awards, B.o.B. has himself a true music career—and all of us who were here at Wash. U. for his W.I.L.D. performance got an early look at his talent.

The class of 2003’s W.I.L.D. experiences are something that, unfortunately, I will only be able to experience through stories passed down. Nonetheless, I’ve got my own W.I.L.D. experiences to pass on, and hopefully, in ten years, a Wash. U. student will envy the performers I have had the privilege of seeing.

Present: Are the acts worth coming to?

We have a feeling that all of you reading this probably have an idea of how you’re going to spend your W.I.L.D., but for those who’ve never done it before, here’s a blow-by-blow of the day’s official acts. Cadenza trusts you’ll be able to figure out what to do before the concert actually starts.

4 p.m.: Doors—It’s time to make the extraordinarily difficult walk all the way to the Brookings Quad. For those coming from faraway lands like Shepley or Greenway, be prepared. There’s no water in the quad. But once you make it, you get the fun experience of waiting in line and (possibly) getting patted down. Then it’s on to the glorious grassland.

4:15 p.m.: Battle of the Bands Winner—The Second Stage winner won’t be announced until tomorrow, because, well, the Battle of the Bands won’t happen until tomorrow. If you’ve already made it to the Quad, it’s time to enjoy the sounds of Rhyme N Reason, the Jake Bertons or the Greasy Watermelon. It’s also time to pray that the losing bands are able to accept defeat in peace instead of rebelling during the show.

4:45 p.m.: DJ Khizcuts—Also known as Khiz Munir, Washington University’s own DJ Khizcuts gets to take the stage now. Time to begin the DJ’d/mashup portion of the evening.

5:35 p.m.: OCD: Moosh & Twist!—This Philadelphia hip-hop duo has a weird name. Combining a mental disorder with two rap aliases makes me confused, but somehow it starts to make sense when we consider that the performers just graduated high school a few months ago. Remind me why we don’t just save money for one big act.

6 p.m.: Alcohol Cut-Off—This is the most important part of the night for those lucky, but late-coming, non-minors (majors? over-21ers?) Make sure you lug the six-pack before the dreaded deadline, or else that far, far walk was for nothing.

6:45 p.m.: The White Panda—Okay, the group may not be as cool as Super Mash Bros., but we take what we can get. It’s always a good experience to start singing along to your favorite song for five seconds, only to realize it’s disappeared from your auditory cortex before you actively recognize the song.

7:45 p.m.: 3lau—The second Wash. U. DJ of the night, 3lau, also known as Justin Blau, takes the stage. If you’re a little worn out by the recorded music, feel free to take this opportunity to “lie down.”

8:35 p.m.: Mike Posner—Although “Cooler Than Me” may be slightly less cool than the country’s biggest paint party, we have a leading act that people have actually heard of. If you’re still standing by 8:35 p.m., it’s time to enjoy the smooth sounds of the 2010 Duke graduate.

Top things you’ll wish you had known by W.I.L.D.

Your first W.I.L.D. is a learning experience. It’s like a tailgate, but there’s not much food…or a sporting event to follow. Instead of just learning the lessons yourself, listen to some advice that future-you will certainly want you to have known.

1. From far away, it’s acceptable to think that Mike Posner looks like Justin Timberlake. Less acceptable? Shouting that he looks like a JT bobblehead doll during his performance.

2. SLR cameras will not be allowed in. Don’t bring your super-special camera just to be turned away at the door.

3. Pretending to be the bassist of Battle of the Bands winner will not get you groupies.

4. You’re never going to find your friends once you’re on the quad. Try having a charged cell phone, and you’ll have a chance, but the best thing you can probably do is force all your friends to wear the brightest shirt they own. And if you can’t find them, you can at least provide the rest of us with amusement at seeing a 6’4” guy in neon pink.

5. No matter how short the food line is, it will take a disgustingly long time to get your burrito/pizza slice, especially when the beer-induced, time-distorting goggles are on. Try to get in line before you’re starving.

6. It’s important to drink just the right amount. They warn you about getting so drunk that you end up in the hospital, but has anyone ever told you how lame it is to have a hangover by the time Mike Posner comes on? Being exhausted and dehydrated while standing in a mosh pit is never a good situation.

7. Speaking of being dehydrated, there was no bottled water at W.I.L.D. last year. We all know the University’s vendetta against bottled water, but this was a little ridiculous. Advice for the future? Sneak into the quad tonight and hide some in the bushes. You won’t regret it.

8. And in regards to drinking enough, all the buildings on the Quad will be locked. Your only bathroom option is a port-a-potty, so come having emptied your bladder before you get trapped.

9. The upperclassmen guys aren’t trying to hook up with you because you’re a drunk freshmen—they’re not that discriminatory. It’s just because you’re a drunk girl.

10. Worst mistake you can make during W.I.L.D.? Staying sober during the day because you’re planning to go to frats after. Word to the wise—they’re all closed.

Method Man, half of the Method Man-Redman duo, raps during their headlining performance. (Princeton Hynes | Student Life)

Sounds of laughter and chatter drifted through the Brookings Quad along with the mingled smell of pizza, beer and smoke. Hands waved in the air and bodies swayed against each other while the music flowed on.

There goes another Walk In Lay Down (W.I.L.D.).

With Method Man and Redman as the headliner preceded by K’Naan and Passion Pit, Team 31 Productions did not disappoint its audience in this fall’s W.I.L.D.

Senior David Schubert, co-chair of Team 31, knows there is always one reliable measure he can count on to gauge student satisfaction and event success.

“We were out of pizza, so the turnout had to be good,” Schubert said.

Many students crowded around the stage to position themselves closer to the music and excitement of the concert.

Indie-electronic musicians Passion Pit, an opening act, take the stage at W.I.L.D. (Joshua Goldman | Student Life)

“I liked Passion Pit the most,” junior Ian Chui said. “I really like Passion Pit.”

Sophomore Michael Offerman echoed Chui’s appreciation for the opening alternative band.

“I think Passion Pit was the most well known and probably should have been the headliner,” he said. “Method Man and Redman—not many people knew their lyrics, but they were a good combo.”

Freshman Michaela Sass commented on the liveliness of the acts and the concert atmosphere.

“[The performers] were very energetic and engaging,” Sass said. “It was crowded and pretty intense and confusing—but fun. It was a lot of fun.”

W.I.L.D. with a political twist

Though most of the concert carried on as it would in the past, this fall’s W.I.L.D. started on a very different note.

Minutes before K’naan’s performance, a new kind of presence took the stage and demanded everyone’s attention.

Junior Alex Greenberg ran to the stage, grabbed the microphone and identified himself as a straight male and a member of Sigma Epsilon fraternity. For the next four minutes that followed, Greenberg introduced the Right Side of History—an organized effort supported by several University undergraduates to recharge the LGBT movement by garnering support from straight youths.

Greenberg spoke of his friend, senior David Dresner—one of the two founders of the Right Side of History. Dresner along with 2008 alum Brian Elliot, both of whom are openly gay, started the organization with the hope that it will one day become a national movement.

Dresner said he is glad Greenberg was the one to deliver the message.

“I think that having Alex deliver the message maintains the narrative that we’re using to garner support from straight people,” Dresner said. “He is close with me, and personally vocalized in the past his concern for my future. It was touching that [he] did that for me.”

A crowd of students cheer and dance as they listen to opening act K’Naan at W.I.L.D. in Brookings Quad on Saturday. (Princeton Hynes | Student Life)

Greenberg’s speech drew mostly positive cheers from the crowd. Many students clapped to acknowledge the group’s mission, while others remained more reserved while processing the message.

“Starting at Wash. U. in this quad at W.I.L.D. begins the trek to the Right Side of History,” Greenberg cried out to the audience. “It is not an event. It is not a student club. It is nothing of the sort. It is strictly a civil rights movement that all of you are very welcome to be a part of.”

Since the announcement at W.I.L.D. and an article focusing on The Right Side of History published in Student Life last Friday, Dresner said his inbox has been flooded with e-mails.

“There’s an unbelievable number of alumni and students who are interested. We’re building infrastructure as it grows,” he said. “We will continue to reach out at Wash. U. while reaching out to other universities in the country.”

Team 31 approved of the stage time that the Right Side of History had requested—a decision that Schubert deemed “just seemed right.”

“Honestly, it’s not a perfect venue, but it’s the only large-scale venue at the University to give a speech like that,” he said. “We did think about the appropriateness, but we knew it would be a good chance for them. We are all really supportive of the group and its mission.”

“We wanted to help them in whatever way we could,” Schubert added.

Team 31, however, is not making any promises to give other social issues stage time in future shows.

“We didn’t want to politicize W.I.L.D.,” Schubert said. “The Right Side of History was a group that had reached out to us. They had a great agenda, a pretty clear-cut message and an idea of how we could help them.”

For Dresner, there was no better place or time to deliver the message of activism.

“The noble energy complements the fun, cohesive message of W.I.L.D.,” he said. “At the end of the day, there aren’t that many times when all of Wash. U. gets together. We had the opportunity, and we seized the day.”

Wendy Kopp delivers the 2009 commencement address. (Lily Schorr | Student Life )

Good morning all. It is a real privilege to be here with you. I jumped at the chance to speak at Washington University because this has become such an important place for Teach For America — you have produced some of the most inspiring and impactful leaders in our corps, alumni force and organization. I think there’s something in the water here, no doubt thanks to your own intentional practice, and I hope that the faculty and administration can reflect this morning on the difference you are making through your work.

It is also an honor to share in the accomplishment that today represents for you graduates and your families. I can only imagine the different stories of your lives, the different sorts of opportunities and challenges you have each had and faced. You should feel an incredible sense of collective accomplishment for what you have learned and what you have achieved. And as a mother of four little ones, I can only imagine how proud your parents must be. So, congratulations to all of you.

Finally, a special salute to the 25 of you who have signed up for Teach For America! We are so excited about what you will bring to our work.

I wanted to talk with you this morning about your choices at this stage of your lives — about where you decide to channel your energy as you progress over the coming two or three or five years. Because I feel like I lucked into my life path, and I wish someone had told me before what I know now since things of such consequence are not best left to chance.

When I was sitting in your seats at another good school now 20 years ago, I was about to embark on a real adventure. I had become obsessed with the idea that our country should be recruiting our most talented and driven among us to teach in our nation’s highest poverty communities just as aggressively as we were being recruited at the time to work on Wall Street. I believed that the inequity in educational outcomes that persisted along socioeconomic and racial lines in our country was among our greatest injustices, that the leaders in our generation were searching for something they weren’t finding and would jump at the chance to teach in urban and rural public schools, that our energy and idealism would make a difference in the lives of the nation’s most disadvantaged kids, and that ultimately our nation would be a different place if as many of its leaders had taught in low-income communities straight out of college as had worked on Wall Street straight out of college.

Well, because my letter to the President of the United States suggesting that he create a national teacher corps for all of those reasons got in the wrong stack and resulted in a job rejection letter from the White House, and because I possessed at the time an uncommon share of naïveté, I decided to create Teach For America myself. Thankfully, it was an idea that would quickly magnetize hundreds of people who were drawn to the core beliefs and values it represented. So one year after I graduated from college, I was looking out on an auditorium full of 500 recent college graduates who were about to embark on their training and on their two-year commitment to Teach For America.

If someone had asked me at the time if this was going to be my life’s work, I would have shuddered at the question. Not because I had anything else in mind, but because, to me, life consisted entirely of the next two years. It was inconceivable that one day I would be 40-something — that only happened to other people. Yet, 20 years later, I am still here. And I am not alone. Most of the Teach For America corps members who sign up for two years are still in this work in one way or another. Why?

There’s a second-year Teach For America corps member here in St. Louis named Colleen Dunn, who has started her school years by talking with her first graders about their favorite gifts. Everyone in the class goes around in a circle and shares the favorite gift that they have ever received, and then she asks them to close their eyes and imagine what would happen and how they would feel if they lost their favorite gift. And then she shares with her students her favorite gift. She tells them that it is her education because no one can ever take that from her since it is kept safe inside her head.

In America, in this country that aspires so admirably to be a land of equal opportunity, we don’t give all of our nation’s children this gift. Here in St. Louis Public Schools, where 80 percent of students are living below the poverty line and 84 percent are kids of color, would you believe that 16 percent of our children are meeting state standards in math, 19 percent in reading and writing? That means that out of 26,000 kids in Wash. U.’s backyard, about 4,000 have the math skills the state thinks are critical for kids of their age.

And, yet, it doesn’t have to be this way. When Colleen’s first graders arrived in her classroom in her first year, her students didn’t know their letters, didn’t know corresponding sounds, they didn’t possess basic concepts about print such as the ability to differentiate a letter from a word. At the end of the school year, after nine months of days that began for Colleen at 4:30 in the morning and ended with her falling asleep over grading papers, lesson planning, writing parent newsletters, her students had made two years of progress in reading and math. The students who had started out so far behind were ready to enter second grade ahead of average second graders.

Judging from Colleen’s example, the achievement gap doesn’t need to exist — it wasn’t that the kids couldn’t do the work, but rather that they simply needed access to the opportunities they deserved. Perhaps, we might wonder, it was because they were first graders.

Well, at the other end of the educational spectrum we have Anna McNulty, another Teach For America corps member here in St. Louis who is now in her third year of teaching English in high school. In St. Louis, about 10 percent of students will enter college from the communities that we’re working in; 80 percent of those who do will need remediation when they get there. Anna created an Advanced Placement class for her students and set out to ensure that the seniors she taught would go to college and wouldn’t need remediation when they got there. While she selected students who were most prepared to tackle AP work, her students were nonetheless performing on average at a high sophomore/early junior year level when they entered her room their senior year. After a year of extraordinarily hard work, of reading the likes of Shakespeare, Sophocles, Kafka, working harder in school than they ever had before, her students had made two years of progress and were ready to enter college, on average, reading at a college freshman year level. Most would need no remediation.

Anna describes entering Teach For America as a philosophy major with an intention to teach for two years before entering a career in academia. But, as she says, “This wound up being my future.” Why are so many of us making this our life’s work? Because we’ve seen the magnitude of the problem and the consequences of it, yes, but mostly because we’ve learned that it doesn’t need to exist. This is a solvable problem.

I was struck a couple of year ago to hear Muhammad Yunus’ message when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work pioneering and spreading the idea of microcredit — giving loans to poor people without any financial security. His message, after three decades of using this approach to address poverty, was that he firmly believes we can eliminate poverty. “I strongly believe,” he said, “that we can create a poverty-free world, if we want to. In that kind of world, [the] only place you can see poverty is in the museum. …”

Now, most of us view poverty as a massive and daunting problem — a problem we are unlikely to solve in our lifetimes. But Muhammad Yunus deeply believes, based on his work in understanding its causes and solutions, that we can in fact eliminate poverty in our lifetimes.

The reason his message struck me so powerfully is that it’s so consistent with what we have learned and seen firsthand about educational inequity. We can solve it.

For all of us who have attained the gift of excellent educations and the opportunities that result, it is so easy to isolate ourselves from the inequities that persist in our nation and our world. We cannot let this happen because of their magnitude and the consequence for individuals and communities and society and all of us, and especially because of the evidence that these are solvable problems. Because if we can solve them, we must. If educational inequity, or poverty, is solvable, it is the moral responsibility of those of us who have been given so much to do everything in our power to realize that change.

Now, I imagine that for many there is a temptation to assume that you will address the world’s problems later — after you have families or make millions or gain skills and experience. But there are two big reasons to dive in early — now — which I hope you will consider.

The first is that the world needs your inexperience. There is something about the fresh perspective, the naïveté, the limitless energy that comes along with youth and inexperience that enables recent graduates to solve problems that many more experienced people have given up on.

People want to know how I started Teach For America straight out of college, and honestly, my greatest asset was my inexperience. It proved absolutely critical at many junctures. When I declared in my thesis that I would try to create this corps myself, my thesis adviser pronounced me “deranged.” When he looked at my budget of $2.5 million for the first year, he asked me if I knew how hard it was to raise $2,500, let alone two and a half million dollars. But aided by my inexperience, I was unfazed by these reactions. When school district officials literally laughed at the notion that the Me Generation — this was the label for my generation — would jump at the chance to teach in urban and rural communities, their concerns, too, went unheard. My very greatest asset was that I simply did not understand what was impossible.

I see this same phenomenon every day as I watch 22-year-olds walking into classrooms and setting goals for themselves and their students that most believe to be entirely unrealistic. Despite the conventional wisdom that there is only so much that schools can do to overcome the challenges of poverty, individuals like Alicia Herald, who graduated from Wash. U. in 2005, have naively aspired to put their students on a level playing field.

When Alicia left here to teach fourth grade in South Central Los Angeles, she spent her summer reading Harry Potter because her fourth grade teacher told her that was what fourth graders read. But when she met her fourth graders, they were reading Dr. Seuss. They were reading on a first-grade level. Alicia set out to change that. When the school principal saw her goals posted in her room — for example, a goal that the kids would master fourth-grade math standards by the end of the year — she took Alicia aside and counseled her to take down the goals, for fear that her students might be disappointed if they didn’t reach them. But Alicia naively thought it would be fine. When the principal set a school-wide goal that 50 percent of the parents would sign their students’ report cards as a sign of their engagement in their children’s education, Alicia asked, why not 100 percent? Well, at the end of the year, with 100 percent of her students’ parents signing report cards and after extraordinary effort — including bringing her students together on Saturdays and for after-school tutoring — her students achieved their goal of mastering fourth-grade math standards and they made two years of progress in reading. One year later, 100 percent of parents were signing those report cards not only in her class but in 17 of the school’s 22 classrooms.

Over and over, I see young, inexperienced teachers making a huge difference by setting big goals for themselves that others would deem crazy. So one reason not to wait to address the world’s biggest problems is that they need your attention before you accept the status quo, before you are plagued by the knowledge of what is “impossible.”

The second reason to engage in addressing the world’s biggest problems early is because solving them takes time.

Ed Chang, who graduated from here in 1997, entered teaching and education unsuspecting that it would be his life’s work. Twelve years ago, he was pre-med, graduating with a double major in biology and psychology. Having grown up in a middle class background, unaware of the disparities in education, he described the complete shock of his initial days in the classroom in Atlanta, when he realized that he had one microscope and one scale to teach life sciences to 150 seventh graders, the majority of whom were reading on a fourth- or fifth-grade level and who apparently had never had exposure to science before at all. Ed set out to change things for his kids — he applied for and received a $17,000 grant at the end of his first year in order to build a curriculum based on hands-on field study and laboratory research (again we see the power of naïveté and inexperience). But as Ed turned his kids onto science and built their skills, it became harder and harder to leave even after his two-year commitment was up because students kept coming back and over time there were more and more students who needed his support. And then, when he saw his original group of students — his 150 students — graduate from high school, he actually saw only 15 of them walk across the stage and graduate, and he realized at that point that he would have to do more. At that moment, he knew he would need to run a whole school. And so this coming July, he will open the doors of KIPP Strive Academy in Atlanta to his first class of 95 fifth graders. With time and the foundation that working successfully with students has given him, Ed is now going to have the chance to literally solve the problem of educational inequity for the students in his community.

Similarly, Glenn Davis graduated from Wash. U. in 2003 with a double major in social thought and analysis and international business. After teaching seventh grade in the South Bronx, fellow Teach For America alums recruited him back to the Midwest to be part of an effort to change things for kids in one of the highest-poverty, most crime-ridden areas in the U.S., in Gary, Indiana. He works at a KIPP school there created by fellow alumni. Last year, the school’s fifth graders entered the year at the 25th percentile against the national norm. They entered the school last year. In reading, they were at the 19th percentile. At the end of the year, they had moved from the 25th to the 44th percentile in math, from the 19th to 39th percentile in reading. Three more middle school years like that and his school’s students will literally have different life prospects. Now Glenn is training to start the high school these middle schoolers will enter. I asked him if he ever would have thought when he was graduating seven years ago that he would be starting a high school today and he laughed as if it would be entirely inconceivable. But thank heavens that he dove in early because now he’s going to have years and years to change what’s possible for kids in Gary, Indiana, and maybe beyond.

I said earlier that Teach For America wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my inexperience, and at the same time, it wouldn’t fulfill its potential without time and experience. Two decades ago, as I was getting started in this, there was a hit movie — maybe some of you remember it — called “Stand and Deliver.” You remember that movie? It made a hero out of a teacher, Jaime Escalante, who coached a class in South Central Los Angeles to pass the Advanced Placement calculus exam. At that time, it seemed so stunning that a teacher could get kids in a high-poverty community to excel at that level that we made a movie out of that teacher. At that time, I don’t think we could have found a school in a high-poverty community that was putting a whole building full of kids on a track to graduating from college at the same rate as kids in high-income communities.

Today, we know of thousands of teachers in urban and rural communities all over the country who are proving that their students can excel academically — teachers like Colleen, Anna, Alicia, Ed and Glenn — and there are thought to be 200-such schools, schools like those in the KIPP Network, and others such as YES College Prep in Houston and IDEA Academy in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley — schools started by our alumni that are literally among the top 100 high schools in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. In the two decades I’ve been at this, it is true that we have still not yet narrowed the achievement gap in an aggregate sense. And, yet, things are so very different today. The question we’re asking has changed. It is no longer “Can we do this?” but rather now it is “Can we do this at scale?”

And even to that question, some communities are giving us real evidence of the possibility of system-wide change. From Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to New York City, school systems are closing achievement gaps in significant, measurable ways. If you go to these communities, it is impossible to miss the fact that a big part of what is moving the needle is a bunch of talented, committed teachers, school leaders, district administrators, and community leaders who learned through their experiences teaching in Teach For America that it is possible to solve this problem and what it will take to solve it.

So while I may have shuddered at the thought of spending 20 years in any one endeavor when I was graduating, now I feel incredibly lucky to have happened upon this so early that we stand the chance to actually solve the problem we’re addressing. This year, more of our nation’s future leaders will join Teach For America than came into this effort in the entire first decade of our work. Five years from now, we will have around 50,000 corps members and alumni across the country. Ten years from now, we will have more than 80,000. At this scale, with a critical mass of leaders in communities across the country — working at every level of the education system and supporting the work at every level of policy and from every professional sector — we will be moving the needle against the achievement gap in an aggregate sense.

A couple of years ago, Bill Gates gave a commencement speech in which he shared his regret with his professors at Harvard — which he attended for one year — that he hadn’t been exposed to societal inequities earlier so that he would have had time to truly solve them. Colleen, Anna, Alicia, Ed and Glenn, and all of you, have that chance.

So as you head out today I hope you will reflect on the extent of disparities in our world, on the fact that those who have spent their lives addressing them inevitably come to see their solvability, on the enormous assets that you possess due to your youth and inexperience, and on the kind of long-term, sustained commitment necessary to see through the complexity of the problems and have a chance at actually solving them. If you’ve already matriculated to grad school or signed up with another pursuit, seize the opportunity of those learning experiences but remember one or two or three years down the line the contribution you can make by channeling your energy against the disparities in our world.

As I said earlier, I feel so lucky to have landed in this pursuit. I have spent not one minute of my last 20 years searching for what I really wanted to be doing, because I happened into something that, while exhausting and challenging, is unbelievably fulfilling. I wish you the same good fortune. Thank you.

Brookings Quad

1,422 undergraduates received their degrees, and another 1,343 graduates and professional candidates graduated Friday in Brookings Quad.

Wendy Kopp

The University awarded honorary degrees to Robert L. Virgil, emeritus dean of the Olin Business School and emeritus University Trustee; Patty Jo Watson, Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology; Robert Waterson, chairman of the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle; and Wendy Kopp, founder and chief executive director of Teach for America.

Kopp delivered the Commencement address and told the story of how she founded Teach for America as a young college graduate and stressed the dire need for such a program in today’s low income, urban areas. She urged graduates to use their inexperience as an advantage as they work to accomplish what others perceive as impossible.

Waves of Washington University students flocked to Brookings Quadrangle Friday evening to enjoy the warm weather and the spring Walk In Lay Down concert put on by Team 31 Productions.

This semester’s Walk In Lay Down (W.I.L.D.) lineup featured Filligar, B.o.B, the Cool Kids and the headlining act, The Black Keys.

The main stage concert was preceded by Second Stage, which took place in Bowles Plaza from noon until 2:30 p.m. Second Stage featured the student bands The Odd Couple, The Jonny Friedman Orchestra, Best Face Forward, Potluck Dinner and The Jack and Jills.

According to members of the Team 31 executive board, the concert ran smoothly and was a success.

“I thought it was great. It was a good variety of different musical styles. It had something for everybody. It was well done and had high-quality acts,” said freshman Zack Whitacre, an executive board member.

Reactions from students echoed Whitacre’s statement.

“It was definitely favorable to last years’ [concert],” sophomore Becca Dirks said. “I enjoyed the music. I didn’t think I’d like the Cool Kids, but I did.”

According to Whitacre, many students who were unfamiliar with the bands still came out of W.I.L.D. pleased with the performances.

“People were surprised by how good Filligar was,” Whitacre said.

Some students, however, said that this semester’s W.I.L.D. acts were not as enjoyable as past years’ performances.

“I was disappointed that I didn’t know the acts performing, while during my four years here there have been bands that I knew,” senior Archana Varma said. “I was less invested in what was going on, which is why me and a couple people I was with left early.”

“The bands were pretty bad,” freshman Mariana Oliver said. “I think they could have gotten better bands for sure.”

On April 12, Team 31 announced that Kid Cudi, who was in the original spring lineup, canceled as a result of unforeseen circumstances. Kid Cudi was quickly replaced by Atlanta-based B.o.B.

Some students expressed disappointment with B.o.B’s performance at the concert.

“I didn’t like B.o.B. at all,” freshman Lian States said. “I thought it was kind of gross.”

A few students said they believe that a number of people decided not to go to W.I.L.D. due to Kid Cudi’s absence.

“[Kid Cudi] was the only person that I knew, and I know that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but I know a lot of people were really disappointed about that. That’s who they were looking forward to seeing,” junior Michelle Bernard said. “I think it might have just [influenced lower turnout rates], because I think people didn’t really know what was going on.”

Team 31 said it is working on bringing Kid Cudi to campus for next fall’s W.I.L.D. lineup.

Whitacre said, however, that the turnout was great from the perspective of those on the stage.

“The turnout exceeded expectations,” he said. “I’ve never seen the whole concert from backstage. Being able to look over the entire crowd, it looked like there were a lot of people.”

For senior Sean Flanagan, this spring’s W.I.L.D. was not as exciting as those in previous years.

“It was more laid back. It was low-key,” he said.

Despite students’ mixed reviews about the performances, the greater supply of food at this year’s concert seems to have met demands, unlike at past W.I.L.D. concerts.

“I’m really glad they had free food there, because people wouldn’t have been eating otherwise,” Varma said.

While most students who attended W.I.L.D. were pleased with the event overall, Team 31 recognizes that not every concert will appeal to every single person who goes.

“I think it depends on what your personal needs are as a music fan,” Whitacre said. “The fall was pretty much all focused on rap and hip-hop, and if that’s your thing, the fall is better. If you have a mixed musical taste, the spring W.I.L.D. is better.”

Fall W.I.L.D. featured Talib Kweli, David Banner and Little Brother, backed by the Rhythm Roots Allstars.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of freshman Zack Whitacre as Zach Whitacre. Student Life regrets the error.

Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 17. The Black Keys are the headliner band at this year's Spring W.I.L.D. (Mick Orlosky | Via Flickr)

Team 31 will present The Black Keys as its headliner act and Filligar, B.o.B and the Cool Kids in this year’s spring Walk In Lay Down concert today.

Junior David Schubert, Team 31 co-chair, said that while the performers for Walk In Lay Down (W.I.L.D.)  for the past fall were booked under the Hip Hop Live! tour, the acts in this semester’s W.I.L.D. do not have a similar affiliation, as Team 31 selected the performers to appeal to multiple musical preferences.

“People who have been talking to me when I’m selling T-shirts seem very excited. I think that we brought a diverse lineup, so people in the past who have not liked the artists [will] like this show,” Schubert said. “There’s not going to be any one act that’s going to please the entire student body. I feel like a lot of people who haven’t liked past acts are going to like the Black Keys.”

The performer B.o.B was added to the lineup late to replace Kid Cudi, who cancelled due to a conflicting engagement with his record label.

“I think students were disappointed, as were we, but B.o.B, or Bobby Ray, is also a really exciting up-and-coming artist. He’s been getting a lot of press recently. He’s very talented,” Schubert said. “I feel like he’s going to be big in the coming years as well. He was a logical replacement—he had been on our list along with Kid Cudi for the entire process of booking artists.”

Freshman Michael Offerman said he is excited to see B.o.B, though he acknowledges that the artist is not very well known among students.

“I knew [B.o.B’s] one song,” Offerman said, referring to the song “I’ll Be in the Sky.” “That’s the only song I really know and I’m looking forward to. I have really no reason to stick around after that.”

Schubert said he believes the change to B.o.B in the lineup has been a success.

“The lineups are always somewhat fluid,” he said. “There’s no hard feelings on our end.”

According to Schubert, he and fellow Team 31 Co-chair Ross Festenstein, a sophomore, review student suggestions for artists and determine which ones are possible based on cost and scheduling.

“We considered a lot of different artists. We considered a lot of different directions we could take the music,” Schubert said. “The Black Keys were one of our top choices from the beginning. I’ve seen them before. Their live show is fantastic. I feel like students who haven’t heard of them before will really enjoy it.”

Junior Nadia Mann said she had not heard of The Black Keys before the band was announced for spring W.I.L.D., but she is still looking forward to hearing them.

“I like the mix between things that I do know sometimes and things that I don’t, because I like to learn about the new music,” Mann said.

“It’s rock with a blues influence,” Schubert said of The Black Keys’ style. “Some people make a White Stripes comparison just because it’s a two-person act. There’s also a Led Zeppelin comparison you can draw.”

Inflatable couches in the Quad—a staple of previous W.I.L.D. concerts—will not be available this spring, according to Schubert, since the California supplier Team 31 uses is currently backordered. Team 31 had originally planned to have even more couches than there were at previous concerts.

The couches will be back next fall, according to Schubert.

While the Danforth Campus Bookstore previously sponsored the couches, the Bookstore is funding Wydown Water coolers this spring as a more sustainable alternative to bottled water, Schubert said.

Students 21 years old and above are permitted to bring one six-pack of beer into the Quad before 6 p.m., as was the case for previous W.I.L.D. concerts. Performances will begin at 4 p.m. with the winner of the Battle of the Bands competition, which will be held at Second Stage in the early afternoon.

Free Chipotle burritos will be available starting at 4 p.m. Due to large student interest, more burritos were ordered this year than last year.

Team 31 has been giving away free recordings of The Black Keys during T-shirt sales in the Danforth University Center and the Wohl Center. For those who would like to hear the artists’ music before W.I.L.D., Team 31 has posted links to their music on its Web site, http://wild.wustl.edu.

Well, I wouldn’t know. Let me tell you why.

Before it was announced who was performing at W.I.L.D., I had never heard of Kweli or David Banner or Kid Sister. Nite Owl was a superhero in Alan Moore’s “Watchmen.” You could say rap isn’t my thing. That’d be an oversimplification, but it’s true enough.
I’m going to talk about music for a little bit now. W.I.L.D. was a five-hour event, musically. Those five hours consisted entirely of rap, a genre of music, which while more approachable than Swedish heavy metal opera, is not really something you can immediately get into. Now, correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think there were any big names here either. Nite Owl doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

But still, I decided to participate and have a good time. I mean, it’s not every day you get to see a free concert, is it? And free food is always good.

So I left with some friends at about 4:05 to go over to Brookings Quad. Bolstered by rumors of free Chipotle until 5:30 or whenever they ran out, we meandered to campus. At 4:15, I saw people from my floor leaving without any food. They told me that the free Chipotle had already run out.

This does not make sense to me. If you’re planning on serving food until 5:30, wouldn’t it make sense to have enough food to last until then? Or even enough food to last more than one-sixth of that time? Granted, I don’t really know any of these details for sure. Maybe there was no free Chipotle. Maybe the plan was for it to end before the concert started at 4:30. Maybe they didn’t really run out at 4:15…(We never checked because we were told they were out; instead, we walked in and we lay down.) And it’s not like W.I.L.D. has never been put on before; Team 31 knew about how many people would be there, when they would get there and pretty much everything they’d need to know in order to correctly gauge the amount of food they’d need. But the lack of burritos is not really all that important to the story.

So we get to W.I.L.D., and the first act comes on. All I can say about Nite Owl is that there is a reason he’s not popular enough for a Wikipedia page. We left.

A while later, we came back. I got free pizza and then went to the bathroom. When I got out, I saw a friend of mine who was having some trouble, so I helped get him back to the dorm, and then I stayed in the rest of the night. I figured I wasn’t missing anything. In talking with people who were at W.I.L.D. for the whole time, the general consensus seems to be that I figured correctly.

Now, I’m not saying Team 31 needs to bring in The Who or The Rolling Stones for the spring (although if they did, it would be the greatest W.I.L.D. ever), but can’t they get R.E.M. to come back? Or how about the Arctic Monkeys? Maybe some indie rock band no one’s ever heard of? That certainly would keep with the “no one’s ever heard of our acts” theme that was established this year.

Or even The Romantics. They came once before; what’s to say they wouldn’t again? Come to think of it, I think I’d probably be happy with any band, as long as it is actually a band. Let’s get some instruments and musicianship back on that stage.

And this year’s fall W.I.L.D. performance on Saturday may have been the most successful production yet, according to officials with Team 31 Productions.

“It went as smoothly as I could have hoped for, probably the smoothest we’ve ever seen,” said junior and Team 31 co-chair Jordan Roberts.

“I think it was amazing,” junior Dione Drew, also a Team 31 co-chair, said. “Of the five W.I.L.D.s I have been involved in, this was the smoothest one.”

All the components of the fall W.I.L.D. production—including the performances, the vibe from the crowd, stage management and lighting—operated and synchronized excellently, according to Roberts.

According to Drew, in part because of the many giveaways such as Chipotle burritos and Sony headphones, more students than ever arrived early to see the show’s opening.

A few days before W.I.L.D., Team 31 sent an e-mail to all Washington University students encouraging them to come to the show early for free giveaways.

“We picked up a sponsor this time. They were sponsoring the tours. That’s why we had the free headphones and shades,” Roberts said. “It definitely got people there earlier than usual. The food also went a lot faster than we expected, maybe within an hour or so.”

According to Roberts, roughly 3,500 to 4,000 students attended this fall’s W.I.L.D. Team 31 also sold 260 guest tickets—150 more than the number of tickets sold for last semester’s W.I.L.D., which was headlined by George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars.

Good weather on Saturday was partially responsible for the success of this W.I.L.D. Last spring’s performance was dampened by scattered thunderstorms and chilly temperatures.

“I’ve been here two and a half years, and I know that the weather does play a huge factor, largely because it’s an outdoor concert,” Roberts said. “This time, the weather was great and there were tons of people there.”

This fall’s line-up, featuring hip-hop artists Talib Kweli, David Banner, Kid Sister, Little Brother and Nite Owl, also drew an excited and considerable crowd to the Brookings Quad.

“Each one of the acts has a nice-size following here, so the people who really liked the acts ranged from just being stunned and in awe that their favorite artist was here to just bouncing off the walls,” Drew said.

Roberts also said that, having heard no significant complaints about the scheduled performers, many students were excited about this semester’s hip-hop line-up.

“For some people, they were definitely more excited [about the hip-hop line-up],” Roberts said. “But, from what I heard, a lot of people also had not heard of the bands before.”

Those students, however, were certainly not disappointed.

“I thought that it was really fun. They were all good performers,” sophomore Billy Koury, whose favorite performer on Saturday was David Banner, said. “I was surprised.”

“He had really good stage presence and got a lot of people involved,” Koury said.

Roberts, whose favorite performer was also David Banner, said, “I think he surprised a lot of people. He put on a great show, and he was running past the crowd, pulling people on stage. He is known for having pretty high energy.”

David Banner, Talib Kweli and Little Brother all took part in an improvised performance during the last 20 minutes of the show.

“I thought [the performers] were highly energetic, and the students seemed to enjoy them a lot, especially when the top three performers came out on the stage together,” Drew said.

According to Roberts, some students even had the opportunity to meet David Banner in person after the show.

“David Banner just hung out until 12:30 [a.m.] or so. He was talking to some students, so he was pretty accessible to everyone there,” Roberts said. “I think WUTV interviewed him and Little Brother too.”

With additional reporting by Perry Stein