To all the many proud relatives clad in vibrant hues of tangerine, mango and burnt orange, to the mothers whose perfume sweetly scents the air, to the fathers whose worn hands absently fidget with the change in their pockets, likely hoping for a return on their great investment - you, and to the sea of caps which gently sway in this dusky evening. So, to President Powers and his wife Kim Heilbrun, to the Board of Regents, members of the faculty, in fact to all those who participated today in this grand processional - which, by the way, rivals even the Roman Catholic Church - thank you for this honor of delivering the commencement address for the victorious class of 2010! Thank you for inviting an artist to speak to a group of young, individual voices, who will possibly find that their first battle is to maintain their individualism, rather than to conform to the status quo, as they pen the scripts to their lives. We also had the same amazing UT football team and a super, wonderful, brilliant faculty and staff! We had the same study halls of Antone’s, Barton Springs and Hippies Hollow.
I actually said to my daughter the other day, “Don’t go on ‘my face’ tonight, and no ‘space booking!'” But some things never change. You guys have laptops, cell phones, iPods, iPads, iTunes. And, if I do say something that you already know, you won’t respond as my 11-year-old daughter does with “I know mom. And at least you won’t play me off the stage like they do at the Oscars. How WROONG I was! I have a lot to say and it’s all worthwhile. You know, I didn’t even go to my commencement ceremony because I wasn’t really sure that the commencement speaker had anything worthwhile to say. And now here I am, just like you, in a designer gown.
It was that, “I don’t care what I look like” look that takes two hours to put together. But because I was a DRAMA student, I had little horns on mine. I used to ride my little bike around this campus, dressed in yellow leggings, purple shorts, a red halter top and, of course, my orange UT hat. Hey y’all! OOOOHHHWEEE! Don’t y’all look pretty in your robes? Bless your little hearts. Harden’s speech to the graduating students follows: Watch a video on YouTube of fireworks over the Tower. Harden, a distinguished alumna who has received an Oscar, a Best Actress Tony Award and numerous other honors throughout her career, spoke to a crowd of about 30,000 people attending the ceremony on the university’s Main Mall in front of the Tower. Marcia Gay Harden, keynote speaker for the 127th Spring Commencement, urged graduating students to cherish the joys of life but also to “make a difference and help someone else in their struggle.”