Of course, one of the things that's clear about MIT is the only way you get a degree- since there are no honorary degrees- you have to work like the very to get one.Īnd I can remember when Chuck said goodbye to his freshman class, the students who entered when he first became president. But a number of years ago, many years ago, the Alumni Association was allowed to grant the privilege of honorary membership in the association to a handful of distinguished people. And also to introduce one of my favorite people on this campus, an honorary member of the Alumni Association, Chuck Vest. My only duty in the morning is to get you here and to spend a minute or two while people mill around and get seated in order to- ah, the freshman are getting younger and younger. Those of you who are married to MIT alumni, cards of sympathy will be accepted. For the last 22 years, I've run your Alumni Association with the help of about 7,000 or 8,000 quiet, shy, retiring MIT volunteers. Member of the class of '61, proud parent of a graduate alumna from '95. For the two or three of you in the audience who don't know me, I'm Bill Hecht. If he walks into a graduate class, and he says "good morning," everyone writes it down. If he teaches an industrial class when he says "good morning," everyone, in proper corporate fashion, says "good morning" back. If he walks into the class, and there's no response except a little murmuring, he's in an undergraduate class because no one is awake yet. One of my faculty colleagues reminds me that when he walks into a class, he can tell by the reaction to the words "good morning" whether he's teaching undergraduates, graduate students, or industrial people. HECHT: That was just a test, and you all failed.