As part of a team creating Forever Unfinished: Making and Remaking a Public University, an exhibit that formed part of the University of Michigan’s Bicentennial celebrations, I looked at commencement speeches from three key points in the University’s, and the nation’s, history, 1887, 1933, and 1967. The exhibit presented commencements as not only rites of passages for graduating seniors, but also ceremonies in which universities project a particular vision of themselves to the wider public, reflecting and attempting to shape the historical moment in which they take place.

Image credits: Cover image, Four women, class of 1890, U-M Library Digital Collections. Bentley Image Bank, Bentley Historical Library. Accessed: September 13, 2020. Visitor responses, https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/learn-speak-act/2017/10/27/how-to-build-a-peoples-university/