Spring has arrived, the flowers have bloomed, and for seniors, this means graduation is right around the corner. And with every graduation comes a commencement speaker. In the past, this university has had some interesting speakers. I mean, who wouldn’t be thrilled to hear some big-shot from a company you have never heard of and don’t care about? But if you dig a little deeper into why this university can’t get a speaker who sparks the student body, you find one glaring fact – those who choose to speak at graduation aren’t paid.

This explains a little bit more about the student committee’s choice to bring John Berry to the campus. When The Diamondback announced Berry would be the graduation speaker, several committee members who picked the speaker said he was their first choice. I have no doubt that Berry has done some impressive things in his life, but he isn’t the big name that many seniors wanted. Honestly, one of the major reasons that Berry was chosen is because he is an openly gay government official. Having the courage and the strength to come out should be applauded – especially in a fierce environment such as politics – but how does being openly gay relate to the greater graduating class? It doesn’t.

When the speaker was announced, several gay individuals I know were excited purely because the campus got a speaker who was gay. But I view this reasoning for excitement a bit shallow. Speakers should be chosen based on their ability to move and motivate a senior class, not whether they are straight or gay. For the graduating seniors who are gay, Berry may be a very relatable figure; but to the rest of us, he probably won’t be.

I don’t care whether the commencement speaker is gay, straight, black or white. I want someone well-known who can fire up the graduating class. Yes, Berry graduated from this university, and yes, he is a government official, but this doesn’t automatically make him relatable.

But looking at the situation, you can’t really blame the committee members who picked Berry. Their hands were probably tied and their options limited, knowing the commencement speaker would be speaking for free. Because of this, getting a big name speaker – a viable option at other universities – just wasn’t possible.

By not paying commencement speakers, this university is telling its graduating seniors that they weren’t important enough to warrant the money and they haven’t given enough for a quality and compelling speaker who could move the entire class – not just a portion of it. Perhaps the thousands of hours of work and research put in by this year’s graduates to make this university what it is today wasn’t enough to convince university officials to get a quality commencement speaker.

But who am I to question the financial decisions at this university? It appears they do a great job with finances, with the athletics department cutting eight teams and football coach Randy Edsall being paid $2 million for two wins last season. Yeah, I’m sure they have all of their priorities in line.

So add Berry to the long list of unimpressive speakers who volunteer to bore the senior class. Had a fund been set up to pay the graduation speaker, perhaps we would have someone the seniors care about. But I guess it’s too much to ask after all we have done for this university. On the bright side, now we get to hear about how Berry has a lion named after him from his time as director of the National Zoo. I’m sure it will be riveting.

Josh Birch is a senior communication and history major. He can be reached at birch@umdbk.com.