Snapshots of a sun-splashed day
Begone cold. Begone rain. This was Harvard’s Commencement Day, where the annual outdoor ceremony depends on cooperation from the heavens to run pleasantly, smoothly, effortlessly. The 363rd Commencement Day got that assist, and then some. The unusually sunny and warm conditions were pitch perfect for the vast Harvard Yard celebration, with dapples of light piercing the verdant tree canopy of Tercentenary Theatre. Soon-to-be graduates beamed with bittersweet joy as they passed into the Yard, the joy that comes with reaching a goal hard-won, but also with knowing that the achievement means something deeply meaningful will be left behind. In the arriving throng, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers mastered the art of walking sideways, shouldering through the packed crowds, polite but determined to reach their seats because Commencement is a triumph for families too. As the echoes faded from the high sheriff’s thrice-tapped staff and his loud, top-hatted declaration that the “meeting will be in...