Commencement Regalia

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, April 2 and Wednesday, April 3. Representatives from the Harvard Medical Coop will be at HSPH to take regalia orders from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Kresge cafeteria. The Coop will accept cash, checks or charge cards. If you are not available on either of these days, you may order your regalia by going to the Coop at 333 Longwood Avenue. The Coop will begin accepting regalia orders on April 1. For more information, please call the Harvard Coop’s regalia order line at 617/499-3302 or visit www.hsph.harvard.edu/commencement.

Speaker Competitions

The university-wide Commencement exercise on the morning of Thursday, June 6, as well as the afternoon exercise at HSPH, will feature speeches by graduating students. In each case, the speaker is chosen through a competitive process. Speeches will be judged for intelligence, eloquence, wit and significance. Audiences at these events generally appreciate reflections on Harvard experiences that have taken on particular significance for the graduating student:

HSPH Commencement Speaker

One graduating HSPH student will be chosen to deliver a brief inspirational speech at the school’s afternoon ceremony on June 6.

Students interested in competing for this honor must submit a typed manuscript, no longer than five spoken minutes in length, by April 19 to Anne Occhipinti in the Office for Students, Kresge 112. Names should not appear on the manuscript. Instead, label the manuscript with a four-letter pseudonym unrelated to the name. On a separate index card in a sealed envelope, indicate the pseudonym and the real name. This envelope should be submitted with the manuscript.

Authors of selected manuscripts will be invited to present their speeches to a selection committee, which will choose one speech for presentation at Commencement. Direct questions to the Office for Students, Kresge G-10, 617-432-1036.

Graduating students interested in serving on the committee to select the HSPH student speaker should e-mail Anne Occhipinti at aocchipi@hsph.harvard.edu by Friday, April 12.

Harvard University Commencement Speaker

The university’s morning exercises in Harvard Yard include an address by a graduating student from one of the graduate or professional schools. HSPH students may compete for the graduate school speech, which should address a topic related to the student’s experience at the graduate level.

To enter the competition, students must complete a 2002 Commencement Parts Entry Form, which is available only at the Commencement Office in Wadsworth House in Cambridge in March. Both the application form and seven copies of a typewritten manuscript of a five-minute speech must be returned to the Commencement Office in Cambridge by noon on Wednesday, April 3.

On Thursday, April 11, selected students will be notified by the Commencement Office of the location and time of their preliminary auditions, scheduled for Tuesday, April 16. The final audition will occur on Thursday, April 25. For questions regarding this year’s Commencement Parts auditions, call the Commencement Office at 617-495-5726.

In 2000, then-HSPH student Arese Carrington won the honor of delivering the university’s graduate school Commencement address. Carrington is currently the associate director of the Harvard AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria at HSPH.