Meredith Vieira delivered the following commencement address at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts on Sunday, May 18, 2008:
Thank you President Bacow. Thank you to the faculty and fellow honorees, trustees, the alumni, friends, families, and graduates. This is very emotional. I realize if I were to apply here today, I would never get in.
So I’m really grateful to be invited back. I was invited to a dinner last night at the president’s house and I couldn’t go because I had an accident Friday on the Today show. We had New Kids on the Block performing and it was raining, the indignity of it all, and I fell on the stage and just took my shin off. I was lying in my hotel last night, at the Taj Mahal—the hotel, not the actual Taj Mahal. I was on drugs but I’m not delusional. And I had time with my leg up to think about how I got here today.
I don’t make speeches. Despite what I do for a living, I’m basically kind of shy. But about a little over a year ago, Larry, you know Larry, Larry called. We traded phone calls and I finally reached him and he was on his sailboat. He said to me, “Listen, I want you to give this speech in 2008.” And I had just started at the Today show and everything I read said the show is going to tank now that Katie was gone. I said, “Listen, Larry, I could really screw up my job and then you’re not going to want me here giving the commencement address. He sort of laughed and he said, “Don’t worry about it.” And then I said, “Plus, I don’t even know what I would say to these students.” He said, “Oh, you’ve got a year to think about it.” And then there must have been a gust of wind because his voice sort of trailed off and the last thing I heard him say was, “Speak from your heart, Meredith.”
So for the past year I’ve been trying to think of what I should say to you. Obviously I should try to inspire you or maybe alert you to some of the potholes along the way that you’re going to face. Or I could cut right to the chase and tell you the real story behind Barbara Walters and Star Jones. I know, I know. And I do know. Actually, you know what, I’m going to get to that, I am going to get to that.
