The O’Brien Reaction

Many students welcomed the news that TV talk show host and comedian Conan O’Brien would deliver this year’s Commencement address. “I think it’s fantastic,” says Dennis Zeveloff ’12. “The ideal graduation speaker should be entertaining and have a lot of insight. While Conan might not have the insight of a major world leader, he still has a lot of great advice about working hard.” president Jim Kim landed the speaker by asking O’Brien’s father, a former teacher of Kim’s who is an associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, for Conan’s number. “I called him and I said, ‘Conan, would you like to do this?’” Kim explained. While some faculty and administrators were less than enthusiastic (“I don’t really understand why they invited a comedian,” said one), at least one alum wrote to say the choice topped his own graduation speaker: “We’ve come a long way since 1967….We had (god bless his heart) the trade minister of Saskatchewan.” (Actually, it was Robert Henry Winters, Canada’s minister of trade and commerce.) Says Zeveloff: “At the very least Conan will be entertaining.”

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60 Age in years of the Nugget theater building on main street, which replaced the 1916 original that burned down in 1944.

“I am approaching this as an anthropologist.” —PresIDeNt JIm KIm ON the COllege’s NeW bINge DrINKINg “learNINg COllabOratIve” Of 30 sChOOls that WIll share BEST PRACTICES AND COLLECT DATA FOR THE NEXT 18 MONTHS