Then USC canceled the main graduation ceremony amid pro-Palestinian encampments on campus that ended with two police sweeps and arrests. USC also canceled the interdenominational baccalaureate ceremony Thursday night.

The purpose of the commencement speaker should be to inspire the members of the graduating class, not to amuse or to instruct them, and certainly not to bore them. Of course, in inspiring, he may make use of humor, may instruct, convince, and actuate, but these should be incidental to the main end of inspiration!

A convocation address place a very heavy responsibility on the speaker as he or she is expected to give some final words of guidance to the graduates before they step out from the ivory towers of academia to the real world outside.