It was the best of times; it was, well, the best of times. Commencement day 2000 dawned cloudless and warm, and by midmorning on Sunday, June 11, there was just enough breeze to keep the estimated 25,000 parents, relatives and friends from overheating at Stanford Stadium.
The forecast for the newly minted alumni was, if anything, even more sunny. The Class of 2000 emerged into the best job market in a generation. Starting salaries in some of the hotter fields -- high tech, engineering -- were running above $50,000 a year.
Even graduates who had yet to find a position were feeling confident. "I don't have a job yet," admitted biological sciences major Catherine Chase as she stood outside Memorial Auditorium after the stadium ceremony. No problem. She expects to find work in education reform at a nonprofit. "I'm moving to New York with some friends," said Chase, who grew up in Pittsburgh. "I'm sure I'll find something." Her friend Jennifer Pfeiffer landed a job with SCA Consulting in Los Angeles. "I'm a psych major -- and even I got a job at a consulting firm," said Pfeiffer, a native of Portland, Ore., who will work in the company's personnel practice.
This year's graduating class -- Stanford's 109th -- was the stuff of a personnel consultant's dreams. In his last commencement exercise as University president, Gerhard Casper conferred 1,799 bachelor's degrees, 2,094 master's degrees and 922 doctorates. All told, Casper reported with a hint of wistfulness, he had presided over the granting of 36,506 degrees in his eight years as president. "Many of you know that I am fond of saying that, at a university, all days are first days," he said, once the graduates had stopped chanting his name. "And yet today -- there is no getting around this -- it is a last day for many of us, myself included."
In his commencement address, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan struck a note of caution. He urged the Class of 2000 to work to reverse the effects of global environmental damage -- water pollution, overpopulation, atmospheric warming -- caused by humans. "Corporations have made lots of money polluting the environment," he said. "But I can tell you, they can make a lot more cleaning it up." In the end, Annan accomplished the main job of a commencement speaker -- he left the graduates convinced that they were ready to take on the world. "Poet Robert Frost said that 'education is hanging around until you've caught on,' " he said. "My friends, you've caught on."
