With Hanukkah and the Yeshiva University’s annual Hanukkah Dinner and Convocation rapidly approaching, preparations to host keynote speaker former President George W. Bush are well underway. Students and guests are abuzz with excitement, and due to a tremendous amount of interest, the opportunity to view the ceremony and hear Bush’s remarks at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Sunday, December 14 has been granted to students.
The line-up of keynote speakers that the Hanukkah dinner has featured in the past few years is remarkable. David Brooks, an acclaimed journalist, author and New York Times columnist spoke last year and received an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva University. In 2012, Jack Lew, then White House Chief Of Staff and current US Secretary of the Treasury, addressed the audience. In 2011, NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand headlined, and in 2010, junior US Senator from New Jersey Cory Booker spoke during his time as Mayor of Newark. Popular figures like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator John McCain and Al Gore have also been past speakers.
There is no argument that YU has been able to land world-class speakers, but how they have achieved this is the real question. None of these speakers are alumni or have children in the school. Most of the past speakers are not even Jewish, so how do they end up at the YU Hanukkah gala?
There is actually an entire industry established to help find keynote speakers for different events. Universities and other institutions can hire these companies to serve as middlemen in the hunt to find a headline speaker who can attract benefactors and bring in more people. Event planners can scroll through lists of names sorted in different topic categories on a variety of websites set up for this purpose.
However, YU uses a different method to find the speakers for its annual Hanukkah dinner or graduation ceremonies. According to Daniel Forman, vice president for institutional advancement, the search is an “internal process where we don’t use companies, but look for a keynote speaker who can connect their talk with the mission of YU.” Generally, the YU board of directors, the president and others involved in the planning of the events throw around different names of potential lecturers months before the event. This brainstorming also includes discussion of who the honorees at the event will be; often volunteers, teachers, community leaders and the like are honored with awards at various dinners or graduation. The board of directors must agree on all of the honorees and keynote speakers. If it is the summer or a time where the board does not generally meet and the speaker must be confirmed, the executive committee, which consists of spring and summer advisors of the board members, must agree.
In most years, whether the speaker is a vice president or a notable leader in the professional world – like Dr. Vartan Gregorian, Chairman of the Carnegie Foundation who spoke in ’98 – there is no fee associated with the speaker. Forman said that 99% of the time the speakers do not charge; in his twenty years as vice president, charging has been a rare occurrence. This is partly due to a university policy that speakers are chosen for the honor, not for payment. However, Foreman added that “if and when…there may be an honorarium, then [third party] private funds will pay for the honorarium.” For this year’s Hanukkah gala, Bush is one of the very few who is being sponsored by a third party to be the keynote speaker.
Why would a speaker do it for free? Although the act of giving a speech is usually grounds for being paid, speakers who are being given honors generally do not request payment because their payment, so to speak, is the distinction of being honored at the event. For those who don’t care for the honor, perhaps they agree out of the goodness of their heart and the realization that they are in a position where they have the ability to influence people. Tim Russert, the legendary newscaster from “Meet the Press,” received an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva University at the university’s commencement exercises in 2007 and delivered an address to the 2,000 graduates. What was special about Russert, who died suddenly just a year after his keynote address at YU, was that he received 48 honorary doctorates and delivered even more keynote addresses over the course of his career. He is an example of someone who attended these ceremonies, received these awards and gave the addresses because he realized that he was in the position to make a difference.
Although many names are thrown around each year for both the Hanukkah dinner and graduation, this year the committee felt that they may as well “go for the gold” and see if Bush would accept an invitation to be the keynote speaker. Bush is an ideal speaker for a YU event, for he is a great friend of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, but difficult to secure, as Bush receives hundreds of invitations a year. YU would not have had this opportunity if it were not for the key efforts of two or three board members. No word on what exactly Bush will be speaking on yet, but based on Forman’s words, we can expect that it will connect to Yeshiva University’s mission.