Word: speeches
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...that same speech, President Faust defined the liberal arts as those that “empower you with the possibility of exercising agency, of discovering meaning, of making choices” because “the meaning of your life is for you to make.” In other words, liberal education is an essentially self-contained and self-serving project...
...seniors have been here at Harvard for the past four years, and it’s time to ask the question: how much does that matter? To what degree has Harvard prepared us for success? Or, as J. K. Rowling put it in her commencement speech last year, to what extent has it prepared us for failure? Despite Harvard’s opinionated student population, the university’s biggest challenge remains providing us with a well-balanced education offering a variety of ideological views, the kind of diversity we are likely to encounter in the world beyond...
...answer we believe is correct, we will have the courage to fight tooth-and-nail to defend it. Whether some of us believe abortion is wrong or gay marriage is right, and whether an employer makes sexist remarks or a school restricts students’ freedom of speech, we should never be afraid to use our voice and our privileged position to make a change or, at the very least, make some noise...
...telling outsiders that one is from Harvard, the so-called “dropping the H-bomb.” Doing so creates high standards and expectations, and many are not prepared to face potential failure or criticism. As Conan O’Brien described in his Class Day speech in 2000, once one is identified as a Harvard student or graduate, it is even more difficult to make mistakes because the immediate response will be, “Didn’t you go to Harvard?” The high standards from the outside world come from Harvard?...
...commonly assert that labor executed by the mind—reading, writing, analyzing, and criticizing—is fundamentally different from, and in some way superior to, labor executed by the hands. Why? A clever speech, a lively poem, and a novel scientific discovery all possess an inherent and self-secure beauty that demands no propping up through comparison. A well-built chair, a useful trinket, and a clean bathroom—these too are things of beauty and of humanity. Our own labors are not diminished by a broad extension of this franchise of value...