Sue and Al Corrado ’55
Life Regent, Donors, Pillars

He came to The Bluff in 1951, shy and startled that he was actually in college, who would have thought such nonsense for the son of a grocer, “college was for rich kids and geniuses, and I was neither,” as he said in his memorable Commencement speech here in 2001. “And then, just to make things more interesting, I fell in love with Sue when we were twenty, we were just kids, but I was bright enough to ask her to marry me…look, I’ve spent fifty years thinking about the University, and I conclude that there’s something magical here, a chance to find what you might be at your best, to see how you might serve and give and love, how you might bring your talents to bear, and that’s an extraordinary thing. That’s the essence of the University’s work and dreams. The University is a seed that keeps growing all your life. It’s different for every one of us, that seed, but it’s there now, inside you, and it will be there all your life. Let it grow. No one knows the shape it will take. But it can change your life, if you let it, if you are open to it, if you are not too ironic and not too skeptical, not too cynical and cool and hip to think with your heart.”

Still the best Commencement speech there ever was here.

— Editor