Hundreds of students and their families were forced to cram into dining halls to avoid the downpour.
As Winthrop House Master Paul Hanson compared college life to a river, he joked about the weather.
“It is appropriate that the sheet of paper I’ve written my words on is soaking wet,” he said.
Later in the afternoon, Summers spoke to a gathering of about 500 members of the Harvard Alumni Association about his priorities in his “freshman year” at the University.
He stressed familiar themes about the importance of strengthening undergraduate education, expanding into Allston and investing in scientific research.
He concluded with a discussion of his view of veritas and the importance of the “marketplace of ideas.”
At the morning ceremony, security in the Yard was tight. Walk-through metal detectors were set up at most entrances and scores of police with handheld metal detectors randomly re-screened both graduates and friends and family.
At Johnston Gate, a lone Middlesex County sheriff’s deputy used a handheld metal detector to check hundreds of people seeking entrance to the Yard. Even elderly women in wheelchairs were not exempt from a once-over with his beeping wand.
Minutes after the gate opened to the public, the line expanded until it stretched across the driveway and two more officers were called in to assist.
Some Commencement-goers were miffed by the slow pace of the security checks that made the normally block-length lines to enter the Yard even longer.
“I was here at 6:15 and still there was a big line. I wish there was a better way,” said Amalendu Chatterjee, father of graduating Adams House student Avik Chaterjee ’02.
The crowds that made entering the Yard so difficult quickly left when the rain started shortly into the ceremony. By the time Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes gave the closing benediction, the majority of seats were empty. His remarks were mercifully short for those remaining in the audience.
He said only: “God, keep us safe, dry and happy. Amen.”
—Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to the reporting of this article.
—Staff writer Jonathan H. Esensten can be reached at esensten@fas.harvard.edu.