GREENFIELD AT LARGE 22:30, June 7, 2001, Jeff Greenfield

JEFF GREENFIELD, HOST: Can an hour-long speech change a college kid's life? What would you want for your commencement speech? George W. Bush or Jon Bon Jovi? Has this rite of passage become the wrong address?

Tonight on GREENFIELD AT LARGE. Graduation day: an end, yet a beginning. A door closes, yet a window opens, as the path of learning becomes the off-ramp of opportunity. And as yesterday's students become tomorrow's credit risks, the air is filled with even more cliches than those you've just heard. It is commencement season. We're going to be hearing priceless pearls of wisdom about pearls of wisdom from novelist Francine Prose; humorist, philosopher, cold-fusion expert Al Franken; and history professor Douglas Brinkley. But we begin by noting that there seems to be a clear difference between the recent crop of speakers, and those of years past.

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GREENFIELD (voice-over): It is as traditional as the cap and gown, as the stentorian music. It's the high-minded commencement speech delivered by a speaker loaded with -- well, pomp and circumstance! Here is a classic: Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 1946. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, accompanied by President Truman defines the Cold War.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: In the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.

GREENFIELD: A year later, Secretary of State George Marshall used the Harvard commencement to launch what became known as the Marshall Plan, for the reconstruction of Europe.

GEORGE MARSHALL, TRUMAN SECRETARY OF STATE: It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do, to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world.

GREENFIELD: Here is President Kennedy at Yale in 1962, arguing a remarkably detailed economic point.

JOHN F. KENNEDY, 35TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If government were to abandon its obvious and statutory duty of watchful concern for our economic health, confidence might well be weakened and the danger of stagnation would increase.

GREENFIELD: Now, you still get these sorts of speeches. President Bush was at Notre Dame last month arguing for compassionate conservatism.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Citizenship is empty without concern for our fellow citizens, without the ties that bind us to one another and build common good. If you already realize this and you are acting on it, I thank you.

GREENFIELD: A day later at Yale University, he was mocking his own performance as a student.

BUSH: For those of you who received honors awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say "you, too, can be president of the United States."

GREENFIELD: But there is another sort of speaker in increasing demand on campuses today, the celebrity.

Here is Jon Bon Jovi at Monmouth University.

JON BON JOVI, MUSICIAN: Bon Jovi was never supposed to succeed. Ask any critic. I'm still here. Still the underdog? Maybe. Passionate? Definitely.

GREENFIELD: Here is Wendy Malick, star of NBC sitcom "Just Shoot Me."

CBS news curmudgeon Andy Rooney spoke at the College of Wooster.

TV's Judge Hatchet was at Huston-Tillotson College in Austin, Texas.

Often, these speeches are much more about the personal, than about grand themes and policies. Here is Bill Cosby, one of the most sought after speakers.

BILL COSBY, COMEDIAN: You happen to be the world. You are one person. Can you make a difference? Damn right.

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GREENFIELD: Well, he may be right, but will it matter if you're not listening? Was Garrison Keillor right when he said, the commencement speech is "a small dark cloud" passing through an otherwise joyous occasion?

My guests are novelist Francine Prose, author of "Blue Angel," history professor Douglas Brinkley, and comedian and writer Al Franken.

Al, do you remember -- well, where did you go to college? When did you graduate?

AL FRANKEN, COMEDIAN: I went to Harvard. And I graduated in 1973.

GREENFIELD: Do you remember your commencement speaker?

FRANKEN: No.

GREENFIELD: Not a word.

FRANKEN: No, I don't remember, I -- I spoke the day before at something called Class Day, and Arthur Miller spoke.

GREENFIELD: OK.

FRANKEN: And I remember about a week later getting a letter from a parent of a fellow -- of a classmate of mine who said, we came to watch you graduate from college, not from kindergarten.

GREENFIELD: Nothing has changed. Doug Brinkley, you went where?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, HISTORIAN: To Ohio State University, I graduated in 1982.

(LAUGHTER)

BRINKLEY: I have to deal with this elitism here, anti-Big Ten.

GREENFIELD: Who was your commencement speaker?

BRINKLEY: I have no idea, I can't remember, and I'm a historian, but we were so into partying the night before, meaning just drinking some beer, being with friends. And it was in this stadium and there are so many people, at Buckeye Stadium there, that all I was hoping, I actually got the diploma, and they weren't going to screw up calling up the numbers. And I was so far away from the speaker, it kind of came and went from my mind.

GREENFIELD: No words to live by. Francine?

FRANCINE PROSE, NOVELIST: Well, I went to Harvard, which they called Radcliffe then, I graduated in 1968.

GREENFIELD: Who spoke?

PROSE: The Shah of Iran.

GREENFIELD: I guess you could remember that.

PROSE: The sad thing was, we didn't go. Our crowd stayed away from commencement, because, as a protest. Now, I mean, I could kick myself for not going. I would have loved to have gotten advice about the future from a guy whose country got taken over by the Ayatollah 12 years later.

GREENFIELD: OK, looking back across the years or decades, I don't want to be personal, what could anyone have said to any one of you, that actually might have made a difference?

BRINKLEY: Well, I think if you are at one of the great historic commencements, usually every year if a president speaks, that is going to be remembered. You talked about somebody like Marshall, or any time a president -- Jimmy Carter gave a very important one at the U.S. Naval Academy. Those get remembered.

Otherwise, I think, it kind of -- it is more about the euphoria of the moment. I think the point of it all is to have a speaker who's going to talk about joy, happiness. You know, life has a lot of pain in it. And this commencement is supposed to be a time of big accomplishments, so I don't think it's words you are going to remember.

GREENFIELD: Would either of you have liked to have heard something, looking back on it, I wish I had heard "that"? Or would you have been too wasted or joyous, to use the polite word?

PROSE: I heard a great graduation speech about two years ago. I was doing a piece, and I went to the commencement at the Fashion Institute of Technology, here in New York. And Shirley MaClain gave the speech. And she got up there and she said, well, since you are all going to designing clothes, I think you should know what colors are connected to which chakras, and how it makes you feel to wear orange, purple -- you know, what organs in the body.

I thought, that might be more useful knowledge.

FRANKEN: It's interesting, because that's exactly what Solzhenitsyn said at the -- year after.

GREENFIELD: Good point! And I appreciate your bringing it up.

Still ahead in this half hour, we're going to take a break now -- and what a better time -- why college kids want to hear from Mr. Rogers.

And we'll talk about the one graduation speech that really changed lives. All still ahead. But as we go to commercial, ponder these words of wisdom.

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Bob Newhart, Loyala University, May 12: "You should attempt to give the perception that you are intelligent. This can usually be accomplished by a reference to Kafka, even if you have never read any of his or her works."

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FRED ROGERS, CHILDREN'S TELEVISION SHOW HOST: Well, it's a beautiful day in this neighborhood.

(LAUGHTER)

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GREENFIELD: That was Fred Rogers, who has ventured out of his neighborhood enough times to collect 38 honorary degrees. We're talking about commencement speeches with author Francine Prose, humorist Al Franken, and historian and fellow Big Ten graduate -- thank you for bucking the elitist trend -- Douglas Brinkley.

Interesting point about Fred Rogers, who I have nothing but enormous respect for, I think he is a genuine treasure. He is perhaps the single most sought-after commencement speaker in the United States. Here is a theory: just as you get ready to leave the protection of college, you are going to have to get a job, you are going to have to clean your own room maybe, cook your own food, maybe they want one last comforting embrace for the symbol of their childhood. I mean, maybe...

BRINKLEY: Too much, Jeff.

GREENFIELD: OK.

BRINKLEY: I think they want to laugh. I think people with Mr. Rogers it's like people in the dorms, college students say, my God, Mr. Rogers is coming to town, he's coming to campus. I don't think they really take him too seriously.

FRANKEN: Well I don't think of him as the funniest guy.

BRINKLEY: But he's sort of like a Pee-Wee Herman of intellects in the sense that the college dorm kids...

FRANKEN: I think they grew up with him. They grew with him, and revere him and he got 38. I'm kind of hoping I get, like invited to do the commencement speech at like Bob Jones University because I want an honorary degree in interracial dating.

PROSE: I think Fred Rogers is the only person that they are sure everybody is going to recognize, so...

BRINKLEY: The board of trustees isn't going to object. This a business. Universities in this country are business and this is a supply and demand thing we are talking about, all these community college, state universities.

FRANKEN: Ohio State may be a business, but not Harvard.

BRINKLEY: They are all businesses and they all need to get somebody to fill that bill and name recognition becomes important if you're trying to raise alumni money.

FRANKEN: By the way, at my class day speech the first thing I said was, I have a message from the overseers, please do not give money to the parents, and they appreciated that one.

PROSE: Don't you think a lot of it is for the parents? I mean that is what it is about. You want to know, you have paid 120 grand, so your kid gets to be a Harvard graduate.

BRINKLEY: Or a celebrity. We're living in a celebrity culture.

GREENFIELD: That is what I wanted to ask you about because it does seem that there has been a shift away from the fellow who cures disease, or feeds the poor and if you have a hit sitcom or a rock 'n' roll song, or you have a television show, even, people say I want to see that person. Is that is all this is, that just people want to see the familiar face, hear from the familiar guy?

BRINKLEY: Particularly if they are connected to the school. If Bob Newhart went to Loyola, it's great to have him come back to campus. If Jon Bon Jovi is from New Jersey wrote pop songs about the state that Monmouth University wants to have him there.

FRANKEN: See, that's why I have never been invited to do a commencement speech because I went to Harvard and they are not going to invite to Harvard.

BRINKLEY: How many times does he have to tell us he went to Harvard? That's the problem with people at Harvard. That's the pinnacle of their life, the rest is downhill.

(CROSSTALK)

FRANKEN: He asked me, he asked me he asked me.

GREENFIELD: Actually...

PROSE: I haven't mentioned it once, I mean I answered the question and...

FRANKEN: What I was going to say is that if I had gone to Monmouth, and Bon Jovi didn't have anything to do, I mean had something to do that day, I would've...

GREENFIELD: You could have been a substitute.

FRANKEN: Bon Jovi can't give a speech, a commencement speech, every year, at Monmouth. I would have...

PROSE: I don't think it works that way. I think there is some meeting, you know, administration and faculty go and they come up with a list of 100 names and they go down the list of the names and 99 are busy and Susan Lucci is free that day. And they go, oh, we have a speaker.

GREENFIELD: But it also maybe has something to do with the fact that people don't take any of these formal institutions nearly as seriously as they used to. I have actually read some old commencement speeches, and they are -- particularly at the elite or allegedly elite universities -- and they are all about, you know, you are leaders of tomorrow. You must go out and save the world. You must build character.

I think if someone tried to give a speech like that today the students, whether or not they were partying or not, would laugh in his or her face. They don't buy any of that tradition anymore.

BRINKLEY: I think -- their college courses, they have had the lectures, they've taken their philosophy classes. And there's become a tradition that commencement is a bit of a party, the throwing of the hats, the fraternities getting together, the alcohol, other party things happening around it. It has become a bit of a festival.

FRANKEN: Speaking of alcohol, I thought that Bush did a good thing at the Yale commencement where he said that he didn't remember a lot of his experience at Yale which was about, of course, that he had been drinking a lot. I thought that was very appropriate.

GREENFIELD: I was wondering, you know, you actually set a new indoor record for you of not attacking a Republican on national television. This is a new record for you, and I think you are shaping up very well.

FRANKEN: Well, thank you.

PROSE: You know what would be kind of interesting to do -- to do like an exit poll after a college commencement. And see, I mean, you know, it is one thing if we remember what happened 20, 30 years ago. But just to see how many graduates remember what they heard five minutes ago. It's probably pretty low, because I think, you know, most people at graduation are having a kind of out of body experience. You know they are just astrally project.

GREENFIELD: I did give a commencement speech once there was at least one person starring up at me wrapped eyes with a Walkman. I don't think he was playing a recording of my speech.

FRANKEN: Where was this now?

GREENFIELD: It was -- I'll let the school go unnamed. It was not Harvard.

BRINKLEY: I think the G.I. Bill's what's changed everything because if you go back to the early part of the century not that many people went to college. Now college is almost a rite of passage in American life, so hence you're going to get a lot more commencement speakers, and a vast variety of people that you are going to have to get. Many more people are getting college diplomas, hence you need more speakers.

FRANKEN: Would you stop always giving the historical perspective.

BRINKLEY: I'm the historian here, you stop being the comedian. I'm at least giving the history, you haven't delivered the jokes yet.

GREENFIELD: Well, folks we are going to maybe have interesting -- I this is a good time to bring some love back into this room and take a break, so when...

FRANKEN: I didn't know this show was going to be like that?

GREENFIELD: When we come back, and here's the tease that will bring you all back -- what if we had to give a commence speech? What would we say?

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HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: In all the years since I have been at Yale the most important thing I have to say today is that hair matters.

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GREENFIELD: And, of course, always wear sunscreen. I'm Jeff Greenfield. We're talking about whether a commencement speech can possibly really change your life. Of the people sitting here, I believe only one has delivered a college commencement speech more than once and modesty forbids me from mentioning who that is, so I want to ask my guests, novelist Francine Prose, who's done high school commencements, humorist Al Franken who is still waiting for the phone to ring, and historian Douglas Brinkley, who did do a commencement speech.

You are looking at this audience. Postmodern is the polite way to put it, cynical, burnt out, perhaps wasted in celebration. What would you tell them? If somebody said to you, come to my college, give the commencement speech, what do you want to say to them?

PROSE: Well, I might tell them what I told the high school kids which is don't let your mom and dad throw anything out. I mean, practical, useful.

GREENFIELD: No, that's very good. I mean, I'm thinking of the Superman comics.

PROSE: Things I wish I knew.

GREENFIELD: What else did you tell them that you wish you knew?

PROSE: That I wish I had known? Oh, you know, kind of the obvious banalities. But you know, since then, since I did that, I heard another great graduation speech, and it was Desmond Tutu talked to my kid's -- my son's graduation, and I imagine it was a great speech, but unfortunately the sound system was completely gone, so all anyone heard was one word, which was "dream."

So, now, there is a whole class of graduates who can do, like, a dead accurate imitation of Desmond Tutu with a bad sound saying "dream," so they do remember one thing from it. So, I think the commencement speech should be one word.

GREENFIELD: That's probably -- what did you tell the LSU kids?

BRINKLEY: First thing, I don't think it's just the speech, it's the pageant. And when you look out there, it's not seeing cynical kids, it's seeing families kind of coming together in this sort of incredible celebration, and each of those young people had whatever their struggle is at a state school like LSU.

Some of them came from working-class families, had to work their way, some barely passed, so there is a personal drama going on. I think they listen to what you say. I said something more in the lines of what Walt Whitman would have said is (UNINTELLIGIBLE), don't always have to listen to teachers now, go out and enjoy life.

And as I said before, don't let the rapture pass you by kind of a sentiment. But it was more interesting to see the love, the grandparents, the kids, the -- all of this, it's a great American tradition, and the speech is just one part of it.

GREENFIELD: No, it is true. It's one of the most joyous days you will ever see. Now, you actually would say something serious to these kids?

FRANKEN: Yeah, I thought about this, because I knew I was going to be here. I would tell them no matter how horrendous it gets, stay married. Are you married?

BRINKLEY: Yes.

FRANKEN: Yeah, you know how horrible it can get. And I have been married 25 years...

GREENFIELD: Yes. I don't know how this is possible, but we'll take your word for it.

FRANKEN: Yeah, I have been married 25 years, and you know, there was -- we couldn't stand looking at each other for a long time, but we stuck it out and made our peace. Don't expect too much...

PROSE: It's the worst advice. Really, I mean, suppose they get, you know...

BRINKLEY: That's why the phone hasn't rung yet.

PROSE: Suppose they marry their college sweethearts? I mean -- or maybe you did.

FRANKEN: No, we are very happy now.

GREENFIELD: Is that it?

FRANKEN: I would actually seriously say that stick it out, don't get divorced right away.

PROSE: Seriously? I would tell them it's whatever you think your life is, it's going to change. So just relax. Don't panic, because you know, there is that feeling that it's always going to be this way, it's always going to be this way, it isn't. And it turns out, it's not.

GREENFIELD: In looking at a lot of these speeches and listening to what you were saying and thinking about what I have actually said in these speeches, this is going to sound awful, but it actually comes down almost, like, to the scene at the end of "Our Town," where Emily Webb comes back, and she's desperately trying to tell the living: "This is so fast. This happens so quickly. Live every minute."

But you can't get up, I would suggest, at a graduation speech on the stage, and say: "Let me tell you something, you are all going to get old and eventually you are going to die." That's not what you can say at a graduation, but it's actually what more and more speakers are trying to communicate. The question, does any 22-year-old believe that?

FRANKEN: You know, I went back to the -- my 25th reunion, and I remember the 25th reunion class coming back at my graduation, and going: "My God, those people are old." And now, it's like -- I think next year is my 28th or something, and last year I want back and I looked at, like, the women of the 25th reunion, and I went, hey...

GREENFIELD: Looking good?

FRANKEN: She is looking good. She is a couple of years younger than me, the 25th.

GREENFIELD: I can see how you stayed married 25 years.

FRANKEN: Yeah. You can look...

GREENFIELD: I see.

FRANKEN: ... but stay married.

GREENFIELD: But you know what? I mean, there is that -- there is that impulse, and I think it must be fruitless, to reach across the generational divide and say: "Listen to me: don't do a job because you think it's the job your parents want you to do, go do what you want to do."

BRINKLEY: And that's what -- in their minds, what are they going to do after this? There is also -- when you are siting there, getting your diploma, what are you doing to do after this summer? What job are you going to do? Are you going to go to law school? Are you going to take a year off? All those concerns.

I think most commencement speakers are trying to say, enjoy yourself, you have the whole life in front of you, like a dream cloud. And you know, try to make sure that you don't lose that kind of sense of fun of living.

FRANKEN: I would tell them that they are entering a new chapter in their lives, which is the summer after they graduate.

(CROSSTALK)

GREENFIELD: This is great.

PROSE: I would say, expect a couple of really bad years, minimal. You know, because you get out of college...

FRANKEN: With your wife or husband. Yeah, horrible time.

PROSE: I mean, you get out of college, and you are supposed to have a life, and you don't. I mean, you don't have a life. You think, oh now, I'm a grownup and...

GREENFIELD: In other words, if you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans, which is not a bad piece of advice -- they won't believe that either.

Well, I want to thank most of my guests: novelist Francine Prose, our guest humorist Al Franken, and history professor Douglas Brinkley.

When we come back, I want to tell you about the speech that really did change graduates' lives more than any other I know about. Right after this.

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GREENFIELD: "And Another Thing." The most significant graduation day speech I know of was not made at an Ivy League university by a Nobel laureate, but at a public elementary school in New York's Spanish Harlem 20 years ago.

It was 1981, and Eugene Lang, who had graduated from PS 121 50 years earlier, had come back to talk of his journey from dishwasher to million industrialist. Lang looked at his inspiring speech and decided it was, in his words, "hogwash." Instead, he delivered a promise: "Stay in school," he told these kids, and I will underwrite your college education.

Twenty years later, the I Have a Dream Foundation, born out of that speech, is at work in 58 cities, helping more than 13,000 poor kids go to college, or get a vocational education. They say talk is cheap. Not Eugene Lang's talk.

I'm Jeff Greenfield. Tomorrow, some eclectic voices on the week's news. Together again for the first time, Donna Shalala, and on the same stage, Mo Rocca from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." Ted Koppel, eat your heart out.