Escorts walked New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly to the stage as a cadence of trumpeters rang out from the top of Washington Square arch. Kelly took to the podium, angled slightly above the expanse of violet graduation robes. He spoke.

The 5,000 New York University spring graduates took it in.

Kelly strung his speech with the idea of allegiance: to the nation, to the city, and to one’s carefully crafted values and ambitions. The terrorist attacks of September had undoubtedly altered the allegiances of many in the crowd, Kelly said, urging the students to “take from Sept. 11 the lesson that our purpose on earth is greater than self or even self-preservation.”

Across town, Hillary Rodham Clinton wove much of the same message at Borough of Manhattan Community College’s convocation.

Playwright Tony Kushner’s speech to the 2002 graduates of Vassar College struck an opposing note, but did not shift topics. The way Sept. 11 changed optimism and idealism was the conceptual basis for his commencement day talk, which struck a somber tone at the ceremony. He told graduates to “focus on being real,” and to abandon stale sentimentality and perfectionism. While, according to Kushner, the future does not look happy, he said this class of graduates could change the world.

“The world is waiting for you,” Kushner’s voice is said to have pierced the gray outdoor air. “The world needs you desperately.”

Other notable graduation speakers, making quotable statements and commanding national attention, took stages and addressed proud parents and emerging graduates around the country last month.

Who spoke at University of Wisconsin’s commencement?

A managing partner at an investment firm and the former owner of a Madison-based battery manufacturer.

Louis Holland, managing partner and chief investment officer of Holland Capital Management, spoke at an L&S ceremony. Many graduating students, like senior class vice president Adam Goldstein, said Holland’s speech did not appropriately target an audience of liberal arts students.

“Maybe a business major or economics student would have gotten something from it, but I honestly don’t think the message of the speech meant anything to most of the audience,” Goldstein said.

“It was really long, and no one sitting around me knew who the guy was,” said a graduating history major, who requested to remain unnamed.

Holland, in his speech, narrated how he entered the investment business and outlined his “10 Golden Rules for Success.”

Every rule was focused on “the company” one works for and how to cope with bosses, co-workers and cramped offices.

“Once you get into this company, you have to show that you can cut the mustard, and sometimes that’s very, very difficult,” said Holland, who received a bachelor of science degree in agricultural economics from UW in 1965 and was a halfback on the football team, explaining one of his literal “rules.” “They might stick you in a back room somewhere, and that’s OK.”

It is the senior class officers — along with Goldstein, class president Leif Jorgensen and secretary Wendy Reimann — who compile a list of possible graduation speakers annually. The 2001-2002 group used a set of qualifications when selecting and prioritizing their suggested speakers. They considered prominence, notability, appeal to the audience of students and the speaker’s ties to either the university of the state.

Four or five ceremonies are held every semester; both a student speaker — usually one of the class officers — and a non-student speaker are chosen for each. Former speakers have ranged from honorary degree recipients to foreign diplomats.

Once the student committee compiles a list of possible speakers, they pass it on to the secretary of the faculty, who contacts the candidates and finalizes the schedule speakers for all of the undergraduate and graduate ceremonies.

But UW’s secretary of the faculty, David Musolf, was not able to arrange for any of the people the students chose to speak.

Neither Musolf nor the class officers would disclose whom they had listed, but the list included prominent national political figures, most with links to UW.

An assistant in Musolf’s office said she did not know specifically why certain speakers had declined to come to UW, but attributed the lack of notable commencement speakers in 2002 to the short time frame in which the officers and faculty book speakers.

“We do the selection year by year, and some people?s calendars are booked years and years in the past,” said administrative specialist Paula Gray.

Goldstein said one speaker the officers requested was attending a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, and the ceremony dates fell on another’s wedding anniversary. While he said “none of the speakers were snubbing UW by not coming,” Goldstien added neither he nor any of the other class officers were consulted when UW administrators chose alternative speakers.

Aside from Holland, one other speaker from outside the immediate UW community addressed the graduates. Musolf arranged forThomas F. Pyle, Jr., chair of The Pyle Group and former principal owner of Rayovac, to speak at the convocation. He had received a master’s degree in business administration from UW in 1963 and spoke to business school and masters recipients at the Sunday, May 19 ceremony. Chancellor John Wiley spoke May 18 to the second group of L&S graduates.

Comparable universities use a range of systems to select convocation speakers, but most say they use the same qualifications UW does: notoriety, proximity and applicability.

President Bush took the stage at West Point Academy and Ohio State University this spring, showing the role prominence and publicity play in the selection process. The issue for Big Ten and Ivy League universities becomes booking the most prominent speaker possible.

The University of Michigan relies on faculty ties to celebrities, prominent academics and politicians to arrange for notable personalities to visit the campus, rather than UW’s system of speeding a list of recommended — but possibly unknown to the secretary of the faculty’s office or Chancellor Wiley — candidates to those in charge of finalizing the lineup.

“There’s not a uniform way we contact the speaker, but it?s often the case that there is someone on university staff who knows them — a contact on staff,” said Gary Kremz, special counsel to UM president Joseph White.

Michigan selects speakers each year from its list of honorary degree recipients, usually three to six names, which is compiled by the dean of the graduate school, appointed by the university president and then reviewed by the Board of Regents.

This year’s speakers include: William H. Gray III, president and chief executive officer of the United Negro College Fund and former U.S. congressman; John Rich, award-winning television and film director and producer; and Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, former UW dean of students and former secretary of Health and Human Services.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky have agreed to speak at Michigan in past years.

UW has lacked notable speakers for years, though. The most notable presenter in 2001 was former Clinton trade representative Charlene Barshefsky.

“One year you might have just a couple of honorary degree recipients speak, the next you have Greta Van Sustern or the secretary of state — who knows?” Musolf said.

At Vassar College, where Stephen King spoke last year and Kushner spoke this spring, a group of students is responsible for arranging speakers. The commencement committee is mandated as part of student government’s services there, according to a spokesman for the college.

The University of California-Berkeley, conversely, puts its alumni house in charge of choosing speakers each semester. Olympian Jonny Moseley was among this year’s convocation speakers there, according to Marie Felde, the school’s director of media relations, and Janet Reno addressed the 2001 graduates.

Although UW’s recent speakers were less notable, they brought local success stories to graduates and “can identify better with the graduates,” according to Musolf.

“I haven?t been in touch with other colleges or universities or seen their ceremonies, but I know our system works and I like our ceremonies,” Musolf said, of his nine years in his current position at UW.

At the University of Michigan, Kremz, a spokesman for the president, said the primary goal in booking a speaker is not promotional, but rather to “provide someone that is meaningful and memorable to the students and say some things that are inspirational to the place they are in life.”

UW officials, and spokesman John Lucas said this years speakers accomplished this by both having close ties to the university.

The speakers were not chosen because they represented a fixed viewpoint university officials wanted to convey, though.

Holland’s central point was the importance of mentors in his life.

Pyle, on the other hand, said, “You are the president of yourself. You are your own inspiration. Mentors and sponsors are wonderful, but they are luxuries.”

Both did urge graduates to make the best of the array of bad situations that would face them now and in the future.

“Accept that there will be adversity in your life,” Pyle said. “Spend time dealing with it.”

Because many blamed the discrepancy in the student-selected speakers and the ones UW appointed on timing and subsequent schedule conflicts, Goldstein advises next year’s officers to think ahead and act early in planning convocation.