John Lithgow speaks at Harvard commencement

Most of Harvard University's commencement speakers in recent years have been political heavyweights, such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo...

Makes sense, considering Harvard is one of the premier universities in the world.

But what did those brilliant grads get this year? None other than comedian and Harvard alumnus John Lithgow!

Yep, the guy from Third Rock from the Sun and the voice of Lord Farquaad from Shrek poked fun at Harvard's recent scandal involving president Lawrence H. Summers's remarks on women in science. Apparently, the actor has taken up writing children's books as a hobby and decided to do something a bit unorthodox for his speech. He recited his latest story verbatim, an amusing rhyme about a female mouse named Mahalia, who "overcomes danger and prejudice to study at Harvard."

Young Mahalia, scavenging for food to feed her family, gets caught in a student's backpack and finds herself carried into a science class, where the professor threatens: ''Don't take it unless you are an absolute ace."

Intrigued, Mahalia sticks around until she is discovered, wreaking havoc among the screaming human students. But then the professor examines her notes. '' 'This mouse is a genius,' he cried. 'This rodent will study with me!' " Lithgow boomed in the voice of an intimidating professor, reciting his poem from memory.

If I had been in the crowd, I might have thought that I was being seriously gipped by a university that probably has a larger endowment than the annual revenue of Africa. Surprisingly though, it seems that many of the grads loved it.


...Lithgow's poem was met with delighted laughter, and he was mobbed afterward by autograph seekers. Nancy Winlock Carrel, class of 1955, called Lithgow's light-hearted speech ''refreshing to the max."


Yes, the humor was a nice touch, but what was probably even more refreshing was the scent of that Harvard diploma...