Point
  James D'Entremont

This past week, WPI officially announced the 2011 commencement speaker would be Rex Tillerson, the Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil. Surprisingly, this news has been met with disappointment, and occasionally hostility, by some within the WPI community. They seem to view this appointment as a betrayal of WPI’s commitment to being “green” and think WPI only wanted him to speak at commencement to give the university more prestige. I find these arguments shallow, as they seem to ignore all of Tillerson’s qualifications as a commencement speaker.
  Regardless of the scale one uses to measure power, Rex Tillerson is a powerful individual. On top of being the Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, he is the national president of the Boy Scouts of America, the vice chairman of the Ford’s Theater Society, a member of the National Petroleum Council, a member of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, and a trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, among other things.
  Mr. Tillerson also previously served as the director the United Negro College Fund. He is an extremely accomplished and intelligent individual from which WPI graduates can hope to learn a lot. He has also been named one of the “25 Most Powerful People in Business” by Fortune. This man has clearly enjoyed success in his business life, and WPI graduates stand to learn a lot from him at this coming commencement.
  The ExxonMobil Corporation has also been a generous donor to WPI over the years, with gifts totaling over $1.3 million. This donated money has had a direct impact on WPI’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programs for students in grades K-12. These donations have allowed the WPI STEM outreach program to become one of the most comprehensive in the nation.
  A prime example of how these donations have affected WPI is the ExxonMobil Bernard Science Summer Camp, which will return to campus this coming summer. This program allows underrepresented middle-school students to interact with and experience WPI’s state of the art science, engineering, and mathematics programs. Teachers are also provided with professional development training. Through the generosity of ExxonMobil, and its CEO Rex Tillerson, WPI has been able to expand its K-12 STEM outreach programs and help underrepresented minorities gain exposures to these important fields.
  To suggest WPI is being hypocritical by flaunting its “green” initiatives while inviting the head of a major oil and gas company to speak at its graduation ceremonies is a little harsh. WPI would be being hypocritical if they flaunted how green they are and then threw toxic runoff into Institute Pond. Natural gas and oil is still what powers the vast majority of the world and that isn’t going to change in the near future.
  ExxonMobil, and consequently Rex Tillerson, will certainly be major players in shaping the energy policy of the United States over the next few years. By listening to what he has to say on May 14, we may get a glimpse of what the future of energy will be in the United States.
  Furthermore, ExxonMobil’s environmental record isn’t as bad as some may believe. The company donated $6.6 million to environmental and social groups in 2007, and they haven’t had a major environmental disaster since 1989, before most of us were born (and that disaster was significantly smaller than the recent BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill).
  I will be the first to say that I am a little disappointed that Rex Tillerson is our commencement speaker. I am disappointed not because Rex Tillerson is the individual speaking, but because it isn’t someone like Curt Schilling. (Seriously, I’m extremely jealous of  last year’s graduates.)
  Rex Tillerson is an extremely successful individual in the business world and will certainly be one of the key figures in shaping the energy policy of the United States in the coming years. To suggest that WPI should not have invited him to speak merely because of the company he represents is ridiculous.
  The ExxonMobil Corporation, and Rex Tillerson, both have strong ties to this institution. I, for one, look forward to hearing what Mr. Tillerson has to say this coming May and listening to the advice he gives to the Class of 2011.

Counterpoint 
  John Schaeffer

WPI, like most universities, isn’t particularly shy about showing off its environmental credentials. East Hall, WPI’s newest residential building, is filled with messages about how environmentally friendly the building is. Programs like RecycleMania and the attempts by Chartwells to reduce food waste are heavily promoted among the entire WPI population, and many projects in recent years have been dedicated to promoting environmental sustainability on campus.
  All of these are admirable, and the administration deserves due credit for what are generally earnest attempts to make WPI more environmentally sustainable. However, these efforts are negated by actions which are totally anathema to this goal of environmental sustainability. WPI’s choice for this year’s commencement speaker is a prime example of just such an action.
  Recently, WPI announced ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as the 2011 commencement speaker, complete with a press release extolling the virtues of both Tillerson and the company he runs. Students, faculty and staff have been in an uproar over the decision, which opponents (myself included) feel is a blow to WPI’s efforts to help the environment.
  ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, is a leader in one of the most polluting industries in history. Many remember or are familiar with the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which stood as the largest ever oil spill by volume before the months-long Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. The spill itself was a disaster for local wildlife and fisheries, and Exxon (now ExxonMobil) was vilified for its slow response to what was ultimately a massive environmental disaster.
  ExxonMobil has also spent years and millions of dollars spreading disinformation to the public regarding the sources and effects of global climate change. Now, the CEO of the company is set to be WPI’s commencement speaker. There may have been many excellent reasons behind choosing Rex Tillerson to speak at commencement this year. Perhaps he is a moving and powerful speaker who can whip any crowd into a tearful frenzy, like a veritable wizard of rhetoric. Maybe ExxonMobil has turned over a new leaf and is liquidating all of its heavily-polluting assets to start anew, and Tillerson wants to spread the news.
  More likely, it’s because ExxonMobil “has been a generous donor to WPI” and is “a top employer of WPI graduates,” in the words of the university public relations department. Michael J. Dolan, a 1975 WPI graduate, is the senior vice president of ExxonMobil and sits on the Board of Trustees, providing an even stronger link between the university and its benefactor.
  With friends like these, how can WPI hope to make strong claims and commitments to improving the natural world? Preaching environmental sustainability while choosing the CEO of the world’s largest oil corporation to speak at commencement highlights a glaring contradiction in university policies.
  In the best case, it makes the administration look sloppy and inconsistent in its message. In the worst case, choosing Tillerson comes across as a devious, Machiavellian act designed to improve WPI’s image among prospective donors and still retain said image among environmentally-conscious people.
  In either situation, the university is projecting a disorganized, hypocritical message to the world. As a community concerned about the environment, we should be taking  all steps possible to minimize WPI’s impact on nature and improve the state of the environment for everyone.
  Choosing Tillerson as the commencement speaker hurts WPI’s reputation and weakens the university’s attempts to become more environmentally sustainable. Worse, it makes WPI look like it prioritizes revenue over its environmental agenda.
  Given that this is the United States, the prospect of a private university consorting with anybody that has a checkbook is hardly surprising. Still, one would hope that even the most cynical of university administrations would have its ethical limits. Perhaps it would be good to act reasonably by not simultaneously pandering to the interests of oil companies and environmental interests. However, in light of this latest decision by the WPI administration, it seems doing that would simply be too much to ask.