Barbara Bush's Wellesley College Address, by Dish Harris

It’s June 1, 1990 and a white haired woman in black graduation robes stands on a podium in front of those related to the Class of 1990. She wears purple sashes over her robes, which she will later explain is the color of the Class of 1990. It’s the commencement exercises at Wellesley College. This small all women’s liberal arts college is located in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The girls who attend Wellesley are of the most intelligent and unique women around. The crowd cheers as the women attempts to bring them to order to begin her remarks. This woman is Barbara Bush, wife of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41^st president of the United States, and she is addressing the faculty, staff, board, and students of Wellesley.

Bush opens her speech, like any would, by acknowledging the many different groups in the audience and finishes her opening remarks by acknowledging the guests of honor, the class of 1990. This makes it very clear who her audience is and also sets the stage for the kinds of topics that she is going to talk about. Obviously for this speech, she has geared her ideas towards the women graduating from Wellesley and going out into the world to start their lives. She does an excellent job of being aware of her audience. Not only does she focus on the fact that these women are graduates moving on to a new phase in their lives, but also that they are all women. This fact has a huge impact on the topics she chooses. After acknowledging everyone there, she flatters Wellesley by speaking very highly of it and talking about how it is “not just an institution but an idea”. These comments show her audience that she is well versed in their interests and makes her seem genuinely interested in them and what they want to hear. This helps her to gain credibility with her audience and also opens her up and shows that she legitimately knows what she is talking about.

Bush is also an incredible storyteller and she uses this to her advantage in the speech. She could take the “stand on the stage and lecture about what these women should do to make their dreams come true” path but instead she uses stories and experiences to help her instill the wisdom she hopes to instill in the graduates in the Class of 1990. One of the stories she uses is about a friend’s husband. He is talking about babysitting and his wife tells him that when it is your own kids it isn’t called babysitting. These kinds of stories and jokes bring across the strong message she wants to but also keeps her audience engaged and entertained.

Hand in hand with her storytelling is her humor. This is an exciting time in these women’s’ lives and so again she does not want to stand and lecture them, which would bore them to tears. The humor lightens the mood from all the philosophies she is throwing at them. Within her humor, she also uses examples that the women can relate to. For example, she uses a quote from the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. The quote has to do with the fact that life is fast paced and so you must stop and look around every so often or you will miss the joys of life. Not only is this something that is said to everyone when their life is changing but it is from a movie that was current at the time. Because it was so popular with this era, a majority of her audience had seen the film and could relate to it. With the Ferris Bueller example she also uses humor. After her quote when the audience is finished clapping, she jokes that they clapped more for Ferris than for George, her husband. This kind of humor keeps the tempo of the speech upbeat. The fact that she is relatable and humorous helps to bring meaning to her speech in relation to these women.

Bush does an excellent job using the tools of speech giving that she has in conjunction with one another to help give her speech power and meaning. She never uses one specific technique. She always tries to use all the tools she has to engage her audience and incorporate meaning into her speech as well as entertainment.