When delivering a speech to his entire academic class before everyone accepts a degree and goes off into the world, Senior Roshan Sadanani will remember to stay calm.
Sadanani will face this challenge soon enough. He was chosen last month to be this year’s student commencement speaker, and he will address his peers, family and faculty at Sunday’s commencement ceremony at Wallace Wade Stadium. Sadanani’s experience as president of the Duke Debate team has given him practice with public speaking, but the new test will be how best to capture the Duke experience.
“At the end of the day, I want people to think about what Duke means to them,” Sadanani said. “I have learned a lot about myself and made friendships that will last forever. If you put all these things together, that’s what college is all about.”
Sadanani, a biomedical engineering major, said he took advantage of various aspects of student life at Duke, from attending Duke Symphony Orchestra concerts to participating in DukeEngage in Tanzania. The opportunities that are available at Duke made his college experience memorable, and therefore worth reflecting on in a speech.
“For me, being a student at Duke has been a holistic experience,” Sadanani said. “I know that my time in college may be very different from someone else’s, but I hope my speech will send a meaningful message to everyone.”
Being the student commencement speaker can be intimidating, but it is also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, said former Duke Student Government President Mike Lefevre, Trinity ’11. Lefevre, got a chance to experience the intimidation and the exaltation last year, when he delivered the student commencement speech for the Class of 2011. Looking back, he said an important part of making a great speech is connecting with the audience.
“It was an intense atmosphere when I first walked onto the stadium, but I had the support of my friends and classmates who were watching me,” Lefevre said. “You need to relax—the audience will enjoy your speech more if they can see that you’re having fun.”
Sterly Wilder, associate vice president for alumni affairs, chairs the student speaker selection committee that chose Sadanani from a record pool of applicants. Being the student commencement speaker is a great chance to connect with one’s peers before they get ready to leave Duke, she said.
“I have worked with selecting the student commencement speaker for 20 years, and it’s always a rewarding experience to see the different speeches that all the students have come up with,” Wilder said. “Once you’re up on stage, the important thing to do is to slow down and relish the moment.”
The committee, which is comprised of students and faculty, got to see Sadanani deliver his speech as he advanced through the second and third rounds of the selection process. The committee now has worked with Sadanani several times to revise his speech, Wilder noted.
The structure of Sadanani’s commencement speech speaks to his overall personality, said senior Kejal Shah, who is a close friend of Sadanani. She said she has worked closely with Sadanani in editing and refining his address to prepare for the big day. She said his speech reflects his desire to connect with his fellow sudents and the Class of 2012.
“[Sadanani] was really concerned about making sure that his speech spoke to the entire audience and not just the undergraduates,” Shah said. “He’s really hardworking and eloquent, but one of the unique things about Roshan is that he looks out for everybody to make sure that his own experiences will have an impact on other people.”
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