The art of the commencement speech. The commencement ceremony affirms each student’s search for knowledge.
It often includes a 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. Though these myriad departures and arrivals of everyday existence are seldom met with ceremony, words traditionally reserved for momentous occasions may ring true and inspirational at any hour. J.K. Rowling's commencement address : “The Fringe Benefits. J.K.
Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. For more on the 2008 Commencement Exercises, read "University Magic. "