{"id":582129,"date":"2010-05-27T20:29:19","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T00:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=48735"},"modified":"2010-05-27T20:29:19","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T00:29:19","slug":"color-commencement-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/582129","title":{"rendered":"Color, Commencement-style"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harvard\u2019s Commencement Day, May 27, included myriad sights, sounds, and experiences beyond the main stage. Here are some samples.<\/em><\/p>\n

Early risers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Members of Autumn River Brass, the five-piece band that serenaded Dunster House<\/a> with classical music at 6 a.m., didn\u2019t take the complaints of disturbed sleepers to heart. When someone complained from a window about being awakened, the group simply played on. \u201cWe didn\u2019t mind; that\u2019s the point,\u201d laughed trumpet player Fred Sienkiewicz. Later, the group escorted seniors into the Old Yard with a selection of Dixieland songs. By 7:30 a.m. the ensemble was done and ready for rest. \u201cWe\u2019re musicians,\u201d said trumpet player Yaure Muniz. \u201cWe\u2019re headed back to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lots of love<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For eight years, Joe Fabiano has kept watch at Mather House<\/a> as a security guard. On Thursday, he kept watch at a gate to Harvard Yard, as he has also done for eight years, and welcomed his flock of students to the Morning Exercises. Moving a white barrier aside, Fabiano smiled and waved as the procession of students and faculty, led by a bagpiper, filed by. Students waved back and offered a happy \u201cHi, Joe,\u201d him. Many stopped for hugs. Fabiano encouraged their procession. \u201cLet\u2019s hear it for Mather,\u201d he hollered, along with \u201cGood luck!\u201d He replaced the gate after the last senior was through and remarked softly, \u201cI love these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Radcliffe reminiscences<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Two Radcliffe<\/a> alumnae dressed in black with top hats and black and red batons warmly directed traffic through the Old Yard, in their duties as official marshals for the day. Pausing briefly to reflect on their own time at Harvard, Vaughan Castellanos Barton and Rosemary Bonanno, both from the Radcliffe Class of 1955, laughed as they recalled some of the changes that have taken place at the Cambridge institution since they graduated 55 years ago. One of the biggest updates: male\/female fraternizing. \u201cWe weren\u2019t allowed in Lamont Library<\/a>,\u201d recalled Bonanno, \u201cbecause it would be too distracting to the young men there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fond memories<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Senior Anthony Pino of Leverett House<\/a> posed for photos and received a bear hug from his aunt next to the statue of John Harvard<\/a> in front of University Hall. The tall economics concentrator, who intends to work for a venture capital firm before entering Harvard Business School<\/a>, said he \u201ccould not feel more fortunate\u201d about his undergraduate years. At Harvard, he said, \u201cYou get lots of new ideas, new ways of thinking about things, and a whole lot of fun, and people that you love, and that\u2019s great.\u201d One \u201cmemory\u201d for Pino was jumping off the Weeks Memorial Footbridge. \u201cI may or may not have done that,\u201d said a coy Pino, who may or may not have been wearing just his underwear when he (possibly) took the plunge.<\/p>\n

Pied piper<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Alasdair Halliday<\/a> \u201982, senior associate director of University Planned Giving<\/a> \u2014 clad in a Macbeth clan dress kilt \u2014 was outfitted for his other role at today\u2019s Commencement ceremony: official bagpiper for his Harvard College class. Asked to return for his 25th reunion and provide some songs, he so pleased classmates with his work that they have invited him back every year since. Halliday, a songwriter and jazz pianist who once played bagpipes for Ella Fitzgerald, serenaded his class with tunes such as \u201cScotland the Brave\u201d and \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking direction <\/strong><\/h3>\n

For most Harvard Commencements, you\u2019ll find Frederick H. Abernathy <\/a>perched on a low platform near Johnston Gate, directing traffic made up of the alumni, faculty, honorands, students, and visitors who crowd into Harvard Yard for the traditional Morning Exercises. (He is Gordon McKay Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Abbott and James Lawrence Research Professor of Engineering.) This time, Abernathy kept up a patter of prescriptions. He warned speed-walking honorands, for instance, to slow down. (Meryl Streep, at the head of that line, took direction well.) At one point, Abernathy also gently admonished the reuniting Class of 1985 to get off the sidewalks and out of the way of the forming procession. \u201cWhen you come to College, you\u2019re told to stay off the lawn,\u201d he said in his trademark radio-pipes voice. \u201cWell, you\u2019re not in College now. Please get on the lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good without directions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Lining up in the Academic Procession does not always come with exact directions. At the last minute, a few members of Harvard\u2019s corps of 36 chaplains were looking for a place to go. \u201cLet it be noted,\u201d said Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein<\/a>, M.T.S. \u201907, author of the bestselling \u201cGood Without God\u201d (2009), \u201cthe chaplains don\u2019t know where to stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the front row <\/strong><\/h3>\n

George Barner \u201929 had a front-row seat at Commencement\u2019s Afternoon Exercises<\/a>\u2014 and it might as well have been the seat of honor. Barner is the lone survivor of Commencement 81 years ago, and he represented the Harvard class that goes furthest back in time. When Barner arrived on campus, as a transfer student from Grinnell College in Iowa, Charles Lindbergh had recently piloted the Spirit of St. Louis to Paris. In those days, the Harvard House system was still a daydream. \u201cWe lived wherever we could live,\u201d said Barner, 101, and a retired lawyer living in Kennebunk, Maine. He bunked in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house on Boylston Street, and briefly at a near-empty dorm at the Harvard Business School \u2014 an institution then less than 20 years old. Barner\u2019s happiest memories are of theater, especially the annual musicals put on by Pi Eta, a long-vanished competitor to Hasty Pudding. His last production, in the spring of 1929, was \u201cWrong Again.\u201d Barner wrote the book, and Harold Adamson wrote the lyrics. (Adamson, later a contract songwriter at MGM, wrote the classic \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful World,\u201d as well as the theme song for TV\u2019s \u201cI Love Lucy.\u201d) As for his alma mater<\/em>, \u201cHarvard changes every year,\u201d said Barner. \u201cFor the better, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harvard\u2019s Commencement Day, May 27, included myriad sights, sounds, and experiences beyond the main stage. Here are some samples. Early risers Members of Autumn River Brass, the five-piece band that serenaded Dunster House with classical music at 6 a.m., didn\u2019t take the complaints of disturbed sleepers to heart. When someone complained from a window about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}