Ira Glass

He was the dean of the School of Communication at American University.

Then he was the head of Voice of America.

Then he was president of Goucher College, which is how this call happened.

I'm from Baltimore.

I have some personal connections to Goucher College.

But I did not want the job of graduation speaker for all the reasons that I've already told you.

It just seemed like a hard assignment.

But I decided to do it.

For reasons that I ended up putting into the speech and telling the audience about.

I also included in the speech one very personal story about me and Goucher College.

I remember I was not sure I should include in the speech, but I did.

And it got a response.

Like, it turns out it was the right move.

And then I also got to tell them about the day my grandma Frida met Adolf Hitler back in 1932.

And so I'm saying all this because with graduation season upon us, I'm going to play the speech for you right now.

And so just to set the scene, this was a sunny day in 2012.

It's outdoors.

The theme of the graduation that year was transcending boundaries.

So that was a phrase that was being repeated now and then during the day.

That's the kind of day this was.