[T]he bigger the college, the bigger the commencement speaker? Not according to the folks at the former Johnson State College turned newly renamed Northern Vermont University, which this weekend is welcoming one-time student and star graduation get Cyndi Lauper.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” school spokeswoman Sylvia Plumb says, “and definitely more media attention because of her national renown.”
Most years, larger institutions such as the University of Vermont and Middlebury College would make news for hosting such 2019 commencement speakers as, respectively, Darren Walker, president of the $13 billion Ford Foundation, and Krista Tippett, Peabody Award-winning host of the public radio show “On Being.”
But this spring, the smaller Johnson campus can boast to Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper, a singer, songwriter and social activist who has snagged an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and now a doctor of letters honorary degree — even though she attended Johnson for only a year and two months before dropping out nearly a half-century ago.
Lauper, 65 isn’t granting pre-commencement interviews to the many Vermont reporters seeking them. But in her 2012 self-titled memoir, the star explains that after she struggled academically — she speculates because of attention deficit disorder — and eventually was expelled from her New York City high school, she agreed to come back after becoming famous if she received a ceremonial diploma.
“I never thought they’d go for it,” she writes. “Silly me — they did.”
That’s happening again at Johnson, although Lauper has other reasons for returning.
“Vermont was so beautiful,” she writes in her memoir about visiting just after high school. “It looked like a nature show, or like ‘Walt Disney Presents.’ I had never seen anything like it, so I stayed.”
Working odd jobs in Burlington, Lauper discovered Johnson though the local welfare office.
“They had this thing called the PROVE Program where you could get a scholarship if you proved yourself through your work,” she writes. “I was glad to have a real college experience. At first I was in a dorm and that was pretty cool, but I kept trying to sneak my dog in and they weren’t happy with me.”
Lauper went on to share a house with ex-felons, former drug addicts and people with mental illness.
“People would always pass judgment on them, and I know very well what that’s like.”
An art student, Lauper volunteered to sit as a nude model.
“I loved watercolor but didn’t get into the class, so I worked there so I could watch the teacher.”
Lauper also deejayed at the school radio station after complaining it wasn’t playing enough female artists. After a year, however, she signed off.
“My art grades were fine, but I flunked Greek history, I was failing English, and in addition to that, I was in debt,” she writes. “When I made up my mind to leave and hitch back to New York, I cried my eyes out. I stopped at a church, like any good Italian, and prayed to Jesus, my secret friend, and all of a sudden I felt him standing on the side of me with no sadness. In a way, he was telling me without words that this failure was okay, that I should just go home.”
That was 1972. A decade later, Lauper released her first solo album, “She’s So Unusual,” whose chart-topping first single and supporting video “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” helped her nab the 1984 Grammy Award for best new artist. She went on to receive an Emmy for a guest role in the 1990s television sitcom “Mad About You” and became the first woman to single-handedly win a Tony for best original score for the 2013 Broadway musical “Kinky Boots.”
“It will be an honor to give Ms. Lauper an honorary degree,” NVU President Elaine Collins says. “Simply put, Ms. Lauper is a creative genius who demonstrates the highest level of excellence as a songwriter, musician, entertainer, and activist. She is a leading voice in issues of social justice and has used her art and entertaining ability to broaden understanding of marginalized populations. Her inspiring spirit will enrich our graduates as they embark to make a meaningful difference in their own communities.”
Lauper isn’t the only artist serving as a Vermont commencement speaker this month. Bennington College will host all three members of the acclaimed folk trio Mountain Man (alumni Amelia Meath, Molly Erin Sarlé and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig), while Northern Vermont University’s sister campus in Lyndon will welcome Northeast Kingdom documentary filmmaker Bess O’Brien.
Three Vermont schools closing because of enrollment and economic issues will hold graduation for the last time. The College of St. Joseph in Rutland will host local writer Yvonne Daley, while Green Mountain College in Poultney will hear from a group of speakers including a graduate, alumnus, faculty member and trustee. Southern Vermont College in Bennington, for its part, has not publicized any presenters.
Johnson is limiting seating to graduates, family and faculty but will broadcast its ceremony live Saturday at 11 a.m. on its website.
The event could capture some future history. In her memoir, Lauper recalls when the late music legend B.B. King came to Johnson.
“I shook his hand, but I remember I was so scared that I couldn’t look in his eyes,” she writes. “I went from that frightened handshake to making a record that he played on. The arc and the miracle of a lifetime is what really stuns me. It reminds me, ‘Don’t count yourself out.’ A lot of stuff happens in life for a reason, and for all I know, that handshake, on some spiritual level, might have been carrying the message, ‘Hi, in 20 or 30 years you’ll be a musician, and I’ll be playing on your record.’”
