Tip of the cap!

Wearing flower leis and colorful academic regalia, jubilant graduates enjoy their moment in the spotlight.

“Some of my most rewarding moments as chancellor were spent with students,” Chancellor Albert Carnesale told those attending the largest of the commencement ceremonies, held by the College of Letters and Science. Acknowledging that “it’s a kind of commencement for me, too,” UCLA’s chief executive, who steps down June 30, gave his last commencement address. He told the graduates, “You enrich campus life for all of us. … You are the best of the best.”

Philanthropist Eli Broad, who, with his wife, Edythe, received the UCLA Medal, regaled graduates and guests attending the School of the Arts and Architecture commencement with anecdotes from his life, including the time he purchased a Roy Lichtenstein painting with a credit card “because I knew that I would take the 2.5 million miles that I earned and donate them to art students. ... I’m here to tell you that giving back doesn’t always have to mean money. It means sharing your time and your talent…or even your airline miles.”

Nearly 6,500 guests and students from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science heard Internet pioneer/Google vice president Vinton G. Cerf (above right standing with Dean Vijay K. Dhir) tease, “If you are going to screw up in engineering, try to do it big time.” Consider the Tower of Pisa, he told them playfully. “The results will become a tourist attraction in the centuries to come and therefore contribute to the general economic welfare of the local population, if not to the reputation of the engineering profession.”

Having been invited to participate in events at Occidental College, Loyola Marymount and USC, all of whom awarded him honorary degrees, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recounted this story for the crowd in Pauley Pavilion attending the College commencement: “When they invited me to come here today, I thought I might as well get a jump on things and order the frame. So I asked the Chancellor’s Office to send over the dimensions of the degree I’d be receiving.… They said, ‘Sorry, Mr. Mayor. We don’t do honorary degrees. You’ve got to EARN your diploma from UCLA!’ Again, for the record, my diploma reads, “Class of 1977, Department of History. College of Letters and Science. UCLA!”