8 Minutes In, the Perfect Storm Hits Penn President Amy Gutmann (VIDEO)

While sopping wet rainstorms have drenched previous graduation ceremonies, it was merely a gentle breeze at the 2009 graduation ceremony that caused President Amy Gutmann to become speechless.

Her carefully crafted words of wisdom were blown right from the podium into the air by the unexpected gust of wind on an otherwise beauty of a day. In seconds, the papers flying led to an outburst of cheering and applause instead of her sentence of praise toward the departing class’ ability to take risks.

How did she react to the disastrous downdraft?

Just as you’d imagine from the pro we’ve grown to love as a wise leader and who since 2004 only keeps getting better at embracing simple elegance and sheer grace.  What followed once she won the stadium-packed audience back is just as simple, elegant and wise a message as you’ll see in the above video that caught the whole thing first hand.

See more Penn graduation stories [display-posts category=”graduation” posts_per_page=”10″]

• Amy Gutmann
• graduation
• graduation 2009