Bono, the lead singer for the world famous rock band U2 and the guest speaker at yesterday's Class Day ceremony, described himself as "a rock star with a conscience."

As Bono held the stage of the Tercentenary Theatre during the ceremony, his conscience was far more prevalent than his stardom. He encouraged his audience of about 30,000, including the 1,600 members of the Class of 2001, to build an awareness of the larger problems in our world.

Bono placed a particular emphasis on the "everyday holocaust that is Africa," which he described as "the biggest health threat since the bubonic plague wiped out one-third of Europe."

Through his work on behalf of third-world debt relief with Jubilee 2000 and Drop the Debt, Bono has been working to combat the "lack of development in third world economies due to the crushing weight of old debts."

On behalf of his humanitarian efforts, Bono has flown around the world and met with the likes of former President Bill Clinton, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Pope.

Bono kept yesterday's speech lively with his tales of "crisscrossing the globe like the Partridge family on psychotropic drugs" with Stone Professor of International Trade Jeffrey D. Sachs '76--who was instrumental in securing Bono as Class Day speaker--and University President-elect Lawrence H. Summers. Anecdotes included a photo shoot in which the Pope wore Bono's signature sunglasses, a plane flight in which an exhausted and disheveled Sachs was mistaken for a member of the Grateful Dead, and a raucous political debate in a "posh" Washington restaurant with Summers.

Bono did not miss the opportunity to take a few jabs at Summers for being "culturally challenged," but he also showed sincere gratitude for Summers' help with the Drop the Debt campaign.

"When I asked [Summers] to look up from the numbers to see what we were talking about, he did the hardest thing of all for an economist," Bono said. "He saw through the numbers [and encouraged] the government of Washington to cough up the dough."