An MIT Alumni Association Publication

Follow Live Tweets, Commencement Webcast

  • admin
  • slice.mit.edu

Filed Under

Mortar board art: Doc Edgerton's famous droplet gets a salute from the  Class of 2014
Mortar board art: Doc Edgerton's famous droplet gets a salute. Photo: Christine Tempesta.

Under the sunny skies of today's 148th Commencement, the Institute awarded degrees to 990 undergraduate and 1,717 graduate students. You can catch moment-by-moment tweets and photos by following #MIT2014.

In President L. Rafael Reif's address to the graduates, he provided some tongue-in-cheek advice to and about new graduates:

"Congratulations on your recent decision to hire, invest in, launch a start up with, enroll, marry, date or befriend your New MIT Graduate. Here are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about handling your New MIT Graduate, to achieve the best results.

QUESTION:

My company has a very competitive culture. But my New MIT Graduate insists on building collaborative teams. What am I doing wrong?

ANSWER:

There is no way to stop this team-building behavior. And be careful: it spreads! Monitor your entire company for symptoms of increased creativity and profits."

Get the rest of President Reif’s charge to new graduates.

MIT Alumni Association President John Jarve ’78, SM ’79, hoisting the official MIT mace, led the 50th reunion class and the undergraduate and graduate students into Killian Court.

DuPont CEO and chair Ellen Kullman delivered the Commencement keynote. She said her own engineering training was valuable solving problems during business crises. "My message to you is to seek the intensity of heat, the insight of light, and vitality of water to transform your life." Heat means rigorously examining a problem or the driving entrepreneurial spirit. Light, she noted, brings transparency and a larger perspective on issues. Water means the resources of time and money and, "in part, that means the time and investment you make in yourself....Focus on the things that make you and the people you love fulfilled."

Kullman, who is listed by Forbes and Fortune as one of the world’s most powerful women, took on Dupont’s top leadership roles starting in fall 2008, just as the Great Recession took hold. That first year involved layoffs and unpaid vacations for employees, but she is credited with a resurgence that stabilized earnings and focused the company on four megatrends: food, renewable energy, safety, and emerging markets. Kullman, who is married and the mother of three, earned a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at Tufts University in 1978 and a master’s degree in management at Northwestern University in 1983.

Read MIT News coverage of talks by Kullman,  Reif, and student leaders.

Filed Under