The degrees will go to Commencement speaker and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel; John H. Biggs, former vice chancellor for administration and finance at the University; Shirley Ann Jackson, the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic University; Griffin P. Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health; and George W. von Mallinckrodt, president of Schroders plc. Commencement will take place on May 20 in Brookings Quadrangle.

As students, we should care about who speaks at our graduation because this individual will be the one to deliver the message that culminates our intellectual experience and guides us toward a meaningful future. But even if we are not graduating, the speaker selection reflects on the values of the University. By selecting an individual to inspire and address its graduates, the University says that it endorses their message or at least considers it a valuable one. In selecting its honorary degree recipients as well, the University makes a statement about the work it deems to be equivalent to a graduate degree. As members of the University community, it is important that we express our values and desires so that the University can make selections about speakers and honorary degree recipients who speak to all of Washington University.

In the past two years, Washington University has selected political pundits to speak at graduation. These choices seem out of touch with a youth population that has become increasingly weary of political gaming and seeking political opinion from the media.

Additionally, the college population has come to admire people more for what they have accomplished and how they have advanced our society, rather than for their opinions about other people. We are looking for inspiration from someone who has worked rather than someone who has observed. In this vein, speakers with experience, such as doctors, academics, scientists or policy-makers, will better reflect our values than pundits will.

But unless the University hears student opinion, it can only continue to select speakers and degree recipients without much regard for the types of people who will inspire and excite us. It is up to us to start a conversation about what type of individual is best suited to address our graduates and what types of individuals are suited to be honored by our University with honorary degrees. Start thinking about who reflects your values. Talk to other students about who reflects their values. And finally, share this information with the administration.

It’s time to become part of the graduation speaker and honorary degree selection process.

While I have many faults, I still have a good memory and that phrase has stuck with me for almost 40 years. Chancellor Eliot started transforming Wash. U. from a commuter-school for the wealthy scions of St. Louis families, not smart enough to be admitted to the Ivy Leagues, to a top-ten school under the vaunted U.S. News & World Report standings. Furthermore, he was also a former U.S. Congressman who is credited with co-authoring the Social Security bill in the 1930s.

While many of us (who are now of course nearing Social Security status ourselves) were offended by Eliot’s “birds” comment, he was probably correct. Only a few alumni from my era are modest givers and show up at reunions. An even smaller group cares about what happens on campus. That’s why the University generally reacts to student protests and complaints with a “rope-a-dope” strategy, figuring it will do nothing until the year’s flock takes wing.

That’s what the administration did and will do with last spring’s embarrassing Phyllis Schlafly honorary degree fiasco, when Wash. U. honored someone who not only took actions that are anathema to the University, but who has also shown contempt for the very idea of a liberal university. The previous year, Wash. U. honored Paul Harvey, who advocated using nuclear weapons in Iraq.

The Schlafly incident was particularly maddening because the cowardly nominator hasn’t even confessed his or her action.  Two of my classmates who’ve amassed fortunes large enough to be elected to the Wash. U. Board of Trustees responded to my inquiry about how Schlafly got nominated with the Sergeant Schultz defense (“I know nothing,” for those who missed the Hogan’s Heroes era). It’s as if Schlafly nominated herself.

So here’s hoping that the class of 2012 doesn’t just suck up the fine education Wash. U. has to offer and fly away. There is more to life than getting into professional school or moving back to your parent’s basement and working at Starbucks. Get involved and for your first task consider demanding, not necessarily the end to awarding degrees to every right-wing nut, but making the honorary degree process transparent so that there can be a true debate about what Wash. U. stands for and who should be recognized.