The Art of the Commencement Speech

The Art of the Com­mence­ment Speech is a project by The Human­ity Ini­tia­tive to col­lect the best com­mence­ment addresses since 1936. To date there are 29 speeches avail­able, from John F. Kennedy (Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity, 1963), Václav Havel (Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, 1995) and The Dalai Lama (Emory Uni­ver­sity, 1998).

The com­mence­ment cer­e­mony affirms each student’s search for knowl­edge. It often includes a grad­u­a­tion speech which seeks to put their recent hard (or not so hard)  work into the con­text of their future. Many of us hear one or two com­mence­ment addresses as grad­u­ates or lis­ten to a hand­ful as spec­ta­tors. Yet — as we grad­u­ate from one year to another, one rela­tion­ship to another, one expe­ri­ence to another — we always are learning.