Clinton Billed as Class Day Speaker

As his spouse shakes hands with America’s heartland, Bill Clinton will address one of the country's most elite institutions.

The former U.S. president and husband of presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will address students as Class Day speaker at June’s Commencement exercises, the Senior Class Committee announced Thursday.

Clinton served two terms as commander in chief and has since established the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues ranging from AIDS treatment to climate change.

Harvard won’t be his only stop. Clinton will also speak at the commencement ceremonies of five other institutions: University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Middlebury College, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of New Hampshire, and Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., according to news releases on the universities’ Web sites.

Even campus conservatives Julius D. Krein and Caleb L. Weatherl ’10, affiliated with the Harvard Salient and the Harvard Republican Club respectively, said that they were looking forward to listening to Clinton—arguably the most prominent Democrat in America today.

“I’m very excited to hear from a former president of the US,” Weatherl said. “Although I am a Republican, and certainly we don’t all agree with former President Clinton here at Harvard, I think it is a great opportunity to hear from someone who was a very important leader in our nation.”

Clinton joins a list of Class Day speakers that includes such notables as Mother Teresa, playwright Arthur Miller, former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, and Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr.

Lately the Class Day appointment has taken on a comedic flavor, with five of the last seven speakers plying their trade as funnymen. The list since 2000 includes late night host Conan O’Brien ’85, former “Saturday Night Live” stars Will Ferrell and Al Franken ’73, “Da Ali G Show” creator Sacha Baron Cohen, and Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the popular television show “Family Guy.”

Class Marshal Peter G. Asante Jr. ’07 was not ready to concede that Bill Clinton did not fit in with the crowd of humorists.

“Personally, I don’t think that Bill Clinton is not funny,” Asante said.

Inyang M. Akpan ’07, an engineering sciences concentrator, said that he was disappointed that the speaker this year would not be a comedian, but added that he did not think the decision would have a negative effect on the graduation ceremonies.

Asante said that he had thought the news of Clinton’s selection would be generally well received.

“We knew that whatever direction we headed in, given the information we had from the class, we wouldn’t encounter much backlash from it,” he said. “And I think most people will be very happy with the selection of our speaker.”

The former president’s office did not comment when contacted, but a representative said that a statement would be forthcoming sometime over the next several days.

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.

FUNNY MEN
A Class Day
retrospective
2000: Conan O’Brien ’85
2001: Bono
2002: Al Franken ’73
2003: Will Ferrell
2004: Sascha Baron Cohen (Ali G)
2005: Tim Russert