In an e-mail to the Class of 2002 on Wednesday, Senior Class President Stephen Goutman informed students that NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw has been confirmed as this year's Commencement speaker.
According to Goutman, the search for a qualified speaker "started after [class] elections last year." Senior class officers compiled lists of various potential speakers and placed them into three tiers in order of preference.
Goutman said that he then "worked with the president's office and. wrote a letter and President [William] Brody wrote a letter [that was] sent to Tom Brokaw."
After letters had been sent out early in the summer, senior class officers began getting responses. Among them was one from Brokaw's personal assistant, who responded around Aug. 20 and confirmed his May 23 speaking engagement.
Goutman said he wanted to be sure of Brokaw's commitment to speak before informing the students about the speaker decision. Along with the senior class officers, Goutman opted to delay their announcement to avoid last year's officers' hasty announcement regarding Condeleezza Rice as speaker, which was retracted soon after.
However, Goutman said that since the University is not paying Brokaw to speak, he has not signed a contract legally binding him to his scheduled appearance.
Goutman said that he is pleased with Brokaw as a speaker.
"I think that as seniors, the graduation speaker is the cherry on the Hopkins sundae, and we all look forward to having a speaker that has insight that can send a great message," he said.
There is a possibility that NBC News will cover Brokaw's speech at Commencement, according to Goutman, although there has been no confirmation of this from any source.
As a result of the high-profile nature of the speaker and the possibility of television coverage, Goutman said that there may be some changes in the ceremony, although it will remain on Garland Field, where Commencement was held for the first time last year.
Brokaw is the anchor and Managing Editor of the weekday "NBC Nightly News" and has been the sole anchor since 1983. During his career as an anchor, Brokaw has been an eye-witness to many of the seminal events of the last 18 years and was the only American network news anchor to report from the scene the night the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Brokaw was also the first, network evening news anchor to report from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996.
More recently, Brokaw has experienced success as a writer. In 1998, Brokaw published his first book, The Greatest Generation, an account of the American generation, born in the 1920s, that fought the Second World War. The Greatest Generation was a bestseller and the subject of an NBC news special. In 1999, Brokaw published The Greatest Generation Speaks, an compilation of first person writings from the WWII generation.
Earlier in his career, Brokaw anchored NBC News' "Today" and was NBC's White House corespondent during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
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