Amid pomp, music, Harvard's class of '09 gets degrees

The hour-long procession began at 8:45 a.m. under overcast skies that later gave way to sunshine. Students wearing unadorned mortarboards filed in by their respective houses, or residence halls.

The High Sheriff of Middlesex County, carrying a gold staff, entered the outdoor Tercentenary Theatre in Harvard Yard alongside Faust, who wore a 17th-century Unitarian gown. They called the "meeting" to order as graduates running late rushed to join their housemates.

On the sidelines, relatives scrambled to take photos. Others watched the festivities on a large screen set up in the yard.

A mother and aunt of a graduate from New Orleans stood on plastic folding chairs to catch a glimpse of the procession. The aunt, Barbara Avery, said "This is just like Mardi Gras."

Flags representing the various undergraduate houses and schools adorned the red oak trees and a few ancient elms.

The classics played a key role in the ceremony: Several songs were sung in Latin, and as is the custom, an undergraduate, Paul Mumma, gave a speech in Latin with subtitles in English.

Harvard conferred 9 other honorary degrees during the service, in addition to Marsalis: AIDS researcher Anthony S. Fauci; anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy; MIT bioengineering professor Robert Langer; Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar; author Joan Didion; Wendy Doniger, professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago; Ronald Dworkin, professor of law and philosophy at New York University; Sidney Verba, professor emeritus at Harvard and former director of the Harvard University Library; and Steven Chu, energy secretary.