Speaking of change

To the young people celebrating graduation May 15, the internet has always been here, a ubiquitous part of life. Their commencement speaker, Vinton Cerf, can assure them that is not true.

Cerf helped to build the internet just a generation ago. In so doing, the computer scientist showed how technological innovations can change the world.

“Our graduates have only known a world with the internet,” CWRU President Eric W. Kaler observed. “Dr. Cerf ’s research shaped the way they learned to communicate and how they find and share information. We are so pleased to welcome Dr. Cerf to campus and honored that he will share his insights as our convocation speaker.”

Cerf, a vice president and the chief internet evangelist for Google, is widely considered one of the “Fathers of the internet.” As part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from 1972 to 1982, he and his colleague Bob Kahn invented Transmission Control Protocol. The communications standard allowed “application programs and computing devices to exchange messages over a network — the foundation of the internet.

“It wasn’t like we woke up one day and said, ‘Huh, we’re going to build the internet,’” Cerf said in an earlier interview with PBS. “It was more like a problem that was posed to us: How do we figure out how to connect these different kinds of packet nets to each other?”

Then they changed how the world communicates.

In addition to the all-classes convocation, May 15 will feature plenty of pomp and circumstance. Once again, graduates will be celebrated with a “Clap Out” as they traverse Case Quad on their way to the Veale Convocation Center. Kaler introduced the Clap Out last year and it proved popular.

Following Cerf ’s address, the campus community is invited to Freiberger Field for the convocation barbecue.

The Case School of Engineering and the College of Arts and Science will hold separate diploma ceremonies May 19 in the Veale center.

Get details on these and other Commencement Week events at case.edu/ commencement/school-ceremonies.