Stanford Magazine - May/June 2012

Speak, Memory
how have commencement speeches—and their
effect on graduates—evolved over the years?
SURVEY SAYS
BY DANIEL NEWARK

Terrific? Soporific? Whatever your view on commencement speeches, they have gotten shorter over Stanford’s 120 years. Among 58 addresses given from 1893 to 2009, those prior to World War I were, on average, more than twice as long as those since 1991. And one, delivered by a professor of classical philology in 1898, was more than four times as long.

As speeches have shortened, their content has become more personal. Early commencement speakers rarely referred to themselves or addressed graduates directly, but since 1900, the use of first-and second-person words (e.g., I, my, you, your) has steadily increased.

WHAT SPEAKERS SAID

Subject matter has changed with the times, often reflecting current events. Some messages, however, have been consistent: Serve others, the world is changing, these times are challenging, you can make a difference.

Summary facts alone cannot convey
the poignant anecdotes, humor, insights
and wisdom that Stanford’s commence-
ment speakers have shared throughout
the decades. For example, in 1992, the
late Kirk Varnedoe, MA ’ 70, PhD ’72,
began his speech:
I work at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York City. This means that
every morning I leave my home and
the normal world of daylight and
humdrum street life, and enter anoth-
er kind of world, where traditional
ideas of space are radically com-
pressed or eliminated; where wild
deformations of imaginative passion
transform human faces into unnatu-
ral masks of anxiety and alienation;
where time itself seems to be warped;
where lost dreams of machine tech-
nology that date to the Russian revo-
lution collide with assemblages of old
cans, spattered paint and the dis-
placed, chaotic detritus of our
times . . . and then I get off the subway
and go into the museum.

WHAT GRADUATES REMEMBER In a 2005 commencement speech, former Vice President Al Gore confessed that he could not remember who spoke at his graduation, and that he expected in 30 years no one in the audience would remember anything he said. To test the truth of Gore’s claim, a random sample of 232 Stanford alumni from the past 40 years were polled. Overall, 59. 5 percent

Average speech length prior to WWI:

6,168.3 words

Average speech length, WWII to 2009:

2,831.65 words

Average speech length since 1991:

2,900 words

Longest speech:

12,671 words (1898)

Highest percentage of first-person words:

Steve Jobs (2005), 6.27%

Percentage of alumni since 1970 who recall their graduation speaker: 59.5% specific speech content: 37.9% their speech’s theme: 28.8%

NUMBERS AT A GLANCE

Percentage of alumni since 2000 who recall their graduation speaker: 93.1% specific speech content: 70.9% their speech’s theme: 54.7%

could recall who spoke at their graduation,
37. 9 percent could remember specific con-
tent from the speech, and 28. 8 percent
could remember its theme.

If commencement speakers find these
numbers disappointingly low, they should
take comfort in at least two things. First,
recollection was significantly higher among
alumni who graduated in the past 10 years;
while speeches may not leave an indelible
mark, their impression lasts years. Second,
speakers should realize what they are up
against. As one alumna explained:
[A]s I was listening to my com-
mencement speech I had just days
before finished 16 years of formal
schooling. I was 21 years old and for
the first time in my memory I had no
idea of what I would be doing in Sep-
tember . . . my immediate future was a
big tabula rasa.

And I was newly in love with another graduating senior I had met just weeks before in guitar class and the day after graduation we were embarking on a 3-week hike of the John Muir Trail . . . In all honesty, if Sandra Day O’Connor, Mother Theresa, or Bob Dylan had spoken at my commencement, I surely would have remembered WHO my commencement speaker was. But would I have retained any more of the content of their speeches? Probably not. I was simply A) too excited; B) too distracted; and C) too hot. They should make the caps and gowns white.

The reference to the weather should not be dismissed. Nearly 15 percent of alumni mentioned the heat, unprompted. And three alumni blamed their poor memory on too much champagne. n