Proud to have Kingsolver speak

As four seniors, preparing to graduate this spring, we are happy about the selection of Barbara Kingsolver, and upset by last Tuesday's editorial, "For graduation, get 'big-name' speakers."

The Editorial Board says Kingsolver is qualified, but that her qualifications are negated by the fact that she's a Duke parent. It seems to us though that knowledge of the University, and a relationship with it, could only make her speech that much more insightful, and less likely to be pre-packaged and generic.

Regarding the Board's alternatives: the recommendations suggest that the selection of a commencement speaker should be reduced to a survey of one-time "Meet the Press" or SportsCenter guests. Our four years of Duke coursework should have taught us to appreciate different perspectives and types of achievement, political nuance and creative expression-not to bow to power or celebrity. We need more from speakers than an ability to repeat talking points or to recite a speech some intern has drafted-speakers that will work to enrich the audience, not themselves.

And, it wouldn't have been difficult for Editorial Board members to dig a little deeper on Kingsolver either-there they would have found abundant evidence of success, even in their narrowly defined terms. Kingsolver has more Google hits than one of The Chronicle's suggested substitutes, Elizabeth Dole (735,000 versus 461,000). Her Web page, kingsolver.com, tells of her establishing an award for novels that demonstrate literary quality and a commitment to literature as a tool for social change and of the National Humanities Medal Kingsolver won in 2000, "our nation's highest honor for service through the arts." It seems then it is not Kingsolver that is "underwhelming," but The Chronicle's idea of the Duke brand.

These though, are not the Editorial Board members' true concerns-mostly, they write, it is "a pride thing." But, being seniors ourselves, knowing a few more as friends, we are fairly sure that the "bottom line" is not "that seniors want to say as a matter of pride that they had a standout speaker send them off into the real world." (As a practical matter, who do you imagine saying this to? Where?) Frankly, the graduation speaker has nothing to do with why we chose to attend Duke, with the relationships we have made while here and with the things we have learned and accomplished. The pride we will feel on that day, that we will carry with us into the future, will be shaped not by the "high profile" of our speaker, but the content of our own achievements and experiences here at Duke.

We are sorry if you do not share this sense of accomplishment in your own right, if you continue to compare the size of your "speaker" with friends at "peer institutions." Please, please, for your own sake, as well as everyone else who has to suffer through The Chronicle's editorials, get over your Harvard-envy and evaluate Duke on its own merits. And while you're at it, take President Richard Brodhead's advice and "read more books," especially the (highly acclaimed) works of the author that you so readily (and thoughtlessly) dismiss.

Darin Christensen, Kyle Knight, Sam Swartz and Matt Zafirovski are Trinity seniors.