Daley as Graduation Speaker Roils NU

Northwestern University President Henry Bienen's announcement that the 2008 commencement speaker will be Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley has prompted a lot of discussion among NU seniors and other students, much of it negative or disappointed. As of this morning there were nearly 300 posts on the Daily Northwestern's website, eclipsing by far any other story.

It's amusing and enlightening reading. Some are hastily typed, some are well-composed. The two most common adjectives appearing in negative student reactions are "lame" and "corrupt." A minority of commentators take the students to task for being elitists or otherwise overreacting, and a few defend Daley. Either way, the comments give insight into a student community that, amongst us "townies," is often lumped interchangeably with the university, but is clearly a diverse body that is distinguishable from the institution.

Some representative comments:

"I'm all about corruption and bad public speakers...I'm pretty excited for this."

"Faaaaantastic. You're telling me even Zach Braff was busy?"

"...who your speaker is shouldn't define your 4 years at northwestern. the honor of graduation is in all you accomplished, not who gives you a speech that you will forget in a few years."

"[As the Princeton Review says,] going to Northwestern University is like having a beautiful girlfriend that treats you like crap."

"Mayor Daley contradicts everything NU supposedly taught us. He is a dictator in America."

"...the 77 above comments without a doubt confirm my classmates are a lot of out of touch, spoiled tools."

"do u honestly think an American symbol of political patronage and a man who has been consistently regarded an effective but corrupt mayor is an apporpriate choice for any college commencement speech?"

"Here is a list of people I would rather see address us seniors in front of our families:

The Maytag guy
Tori Spelling
The guy Tori Spelling is married to
Samantha Ronson
Arthur Butz
Perez Hilton
All the guys in No Doubt that aren't Gwen Stefani
Ron Jeremy
Billy Ray Cyrus (heh, in our dreams)
The guys who invented Youtube, Facebook, Google, or any website ever
Chrissy Gephardt
Jack LaLanne
The last surviving Lollipop Guild member from the Wizard of Oz movie
Mike Gravel
Ron Paul
Miss Teen South Carolina
The dog who can ride a skateboard"

and my personal favorite:

"It could be worse. Todd Stroger could be speaking."