Various high profile speakers including Clarence Thomas and Mike Pence have graced the stage of Hillsdale College convocation. While these individuals deliver speeches that often warrant standing ovations, there are famous figures equipped with the proper words to send graduating Chargers out into the world burdened with glorious purpose. The following five people have been hand-selected as the ultimate dream commencement speakers for Hillsdale College.
Willy Wonka
Business and Econ are definitely top major at Hillsdale. It makes sense to bring in a speaker applicable to that area of study. That’s why entrepreneur and famed businessman Willy Wonka tops the list as the number one dream commencement speaker. Wonkan not only built a fortune creating products suitable for both kids and adults, but was also a promotional mastermind, creating “golden ticket” opportunities to engage the public and generate free press. It’s time for someone other than Dr. Jackson to tell Hillsdale students, “You get nothing; you lose; good day sir.” Making it through the chocolate factory is similar to making it through Hillsdale: you must work hard, you must stay humble, and there are going to be some casualties along the way. Willy Wonka understands the Hillsdale struggle and can bring in the crowds with promises of free chocolate.
Ryan Lochte
Aside from his obvious glowing character qualities that all educated, moral students strive for, Lochte’s little known ties to Hillsdale College surely qualify him to speak to graduating students. According to Lochte himself, in addition to his incredible achievement of discovering nuclear fission, he founded Hillsdale College soon after abolishing slavery. What better cap off to Hillsdale’s 175 year history than by words from the man who made possible the very education of the students at commencement?
Charlie the Charger
Hot take: having a speaker that can’t speak is the single greatest representation of utilizing resources for the common good than any speaker spouting off about Aristotelian virtue could ever hope to be. Especially if the non-speaker’s communication skills are so advanced that he legitimately requires no words to effectively and fundamentally change the mood of an entire group of people. Every Hillsdale student can agree that they never saw sicko-mode until Charlie the Charger cantered into Muddy Waters. Charlie was born for the stage, so let’s give him the Bierman.
Zayn
Legendary pop sensation Zayn Malik, although never attending college himself, reached new heights in the music world, not to mention his strong interpersonal skills with former bandmates Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson. Zayn knows how to drop things when they need to be dropped: his band mates, his fiance, his last name. Although he may not relate to the mission of the good, the true, and the beautiful, (his hit “pillowtalk” would hit exactly zero of these qualifications), Zayn can rock a knee length skirt at Saga on a Sunday after Church with the best of them.
Nero
He could have solved the problems we’ve all had to have. Let’s be honest. If you’re actually graduating from this school, you have at one point or another thought about burning down campus. It might be a fitting touch to have a speaker play the fiddle while this “tragedy” occurred, similar to his own experiences. Political clout seems to be a necessity for campus speakers recently. Emperor of Rome? He has enough political qualifications that the Hillsdale crowds will be able to overlook his murder of Christians.
