History and traditions of Harvard commencements

What was originally called Harvard Colledge (around which Harvard University eventually grew) held its first Commencement in September 1642, when nine degrees were conferred. Today some 1700 undergraduate degrees, and 5000 advanced degrees from the university's various graduate and professional schools, are conferred each Commencement Day.

As of 2024, each degree candidate attends two ceremonies: the Morning Exercises, at which degrees are conferred verbally en masse; a smaller midday ceremony (at the candidate's professional or graduate school, or undergraduate House) at which diplomas are given in hand.

The ceremonies shifted from late summer to late June in the nineteenth century, and are now held at the end of May. A number of unusual traditions have attached to them over the centuries, including the arrival of certain dignitaries on horseback, occupancy by Harvard's president of the Holyoke Chair (a "bizarre" sixteenth-century contraption prone to tipping over) and the welcoming of newly minted bachelors to "the fellowship of educated men and women."

Commencement week

Harvard's Commencement Day, on which degrees are conferred, is the highlight of several days of events such as receptions, dinners, concerts, literary exercises, miscellaneous ceremonies, a baccalaureate service, and Class Day events.^{[further explanation needed]}.

The annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, long convened on the afternoon of Commencement Day, was moved in 2022 to the week following.

Class Day

The annual Class Day celebration occurs the day before Commencement.

Daybreak rituals

Most upperclass Houses have preliminary rituals of their own. At Lowell House, for example, a perambulating bagpiper alerts seniors at 6:15 am for a 6:30 breakfast in the House dining hall with members of the Senior Common Room, after which all process (along with members of Eliot House, who have been similarly roused) to Memorial Church for a chapel service at 7:45.

Morning exercises

Morning Exercises are held in the central green of Harvard Yard (known as Tercentenary Theatre);^{[citation needed]} the dais is before the steps of Memorial Church, facing Widener Library. Some 32,000 people attend the event, including university officials, civic dignitaries, faculty, honorees, alumni, family and guests. Degree candidates wear cap and gown or other academic regalia (see Academic regalia of Harvard University).

Academic Parade

The first to enter are candidates for graduate and professional degrees, followed by alumni and alumnae. Candidates for undergraduate degrees enter next, traditionally removing headgear as they pass the John Harvard statue en route. Finally comes the President's Procession, as follows:

the sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk counties (who have earlier entered the Yard‍—‌in morning coats, top hats, and striped pants with swords and scabbards‍—‌through the Johnston Gate, riding white horses);
the University Marshal, escorting the President and any former Harvard presidents in attendance;
the Fellows of Harvard College;
the Honorable and Reverend the Board of Overseers;
the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (who as of 1971 no longer arrives on horseback with armed, mounted escorts);
candidates for honorary degrees (whose identities are announced only on the day itself) with their faculty escorts;
the sundry deans and vice-presidents of the university;
the faculty, according to rank;

remaining officers of the university;^{[clarification needed]}
former Fellows and Overseers, former faculty, former officers of the alumni/alumnae associations;
the Phi Beta Kappa President and Orator;
the Trustee of The Charity of Edward Hopkins;
the "teaching elders [ministers] of the sixe [historically] next adjoining townes, that is Cambridge, Watertowne, Charlestowne, Boston, Roxberry, and Dorchester", and clergy of the "Old Cambridge" churches;^{[clarification needed]}
consuls to Boston;^{[clarification needed]}
state and federal judges;^[who?]
past recipients of honorary degrees;
public officials;^{[clarification needed]}
other guests.^{[clarification needed]}

Holyoke Chair

At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there.
Seems but little the worse for wear.
That's remarkable when I say
It was old in President Holyoke's day.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1858)

On the dais the President occupies the Holyoke Chair, an uncomfortable and treacherous Elizabethan turned chair reserved for such ceremonies since at least 1770 (when it was already some two hundred years old). Called "bizarre ... with a complex frame and top-heavy superstructure", its "square framework set on the single rear post makes [it] tip over easily to either side." A stabilizing "fin" was added at the rear sometime in the 20th century.

"It was just uncomfortable. I don’t know how to describe it," recalled Derek Bok, Harvard's 25th president (1971–1991), whose mother embroidered a "much-needed" cushion for use with it. Said the Harvard Gazette in 2007:

When the chair holds its robed occupant, onlookers cannot detect the odd geometry by which its triangular seat points toward a square back rippling with knobby dowels and finials. Perhaps by striking their own precarious balance in this strange seat of authority, the successors of Edward Holyoke [Harvard's president 1737–1769] come to sense what the job is all about.

Ceremonies

At the University Marshal's call ("Mister Sheriff, pray give us order") the Middlesex Sheriff takes to the dais, strikes it thrice with the butt of his staff, and intones, "The meeting will be in order." Three student speakers (Undergraduate English, Undergraduate Latin, and Graduate English) are introduced and deliver their addresses.^{[clarification needed]}

Then, according to the order in which the various graduate and professional schools were created,^{[citation needed]} the dean of each school steps forward to present, en masse, that school's degree candidates. Each group stands for the President's incantation conferring their degrees, which is followed by a traditional welcome or exhortation: doctoral graduates, for example, are welcomed "to the ancient and universal company of scholars", while law graduates are reminded to "aid in the shaping and application of those wise restraints that make us free." Last to be graduated are the bachelor's candidates, who are then welcomed to "the fellowship of educated men and women."

Honorary degrees are then bestowed. Finally, all rise to sing "The Harvard Hymn", expressing the hope (Integri sint curatores, Eruditi professores, Largiantur donatores‍—‌printed lyrics are supplied) that the trustees, faculty and benefactors will manifest (respectively) integrity, wisdom, and generosity. After a benediction is said, the Middlesex Sheriff declares the ceremony closed and the President's Procession departs.

Once the dais is clear the Harvard Band strikes up and the Memorial Church bell commences to peal, joined by bells throughout Cambridge for most of the following hour.

Mid-day ceremonies

After the Morning Exercises, each graduate or professional school, and each upperclass House, holds a smaller ceremony (with luncheon) at which its member-graduates are called forward by name to receive their diplomas in hand.

Alumni Association meeting and afternoon addresses

For many years, at the afternoon meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, the President and the Commencement Day speaker delivered their addresses. However, in 2022, the Alumni Association meeting was moved to a week after commencement, as cancellations during COVID "helped lead to the re-thinking about purpose and forums."

US Secretary of State (and former Army general) George C. Marshall's address at the 1947 commencement famously outlined a plan (soon known as the Marshall Plan) for the economic revival of post–World War II Europe.

Historical notes

Sheriffs

"Our fathers ... closely associated the thirst for learning and that for beer", a 1924 Harvard history observed, so that (a modern survey continued) the sheriffs' presence at Commencements "has a practical origin. Feasting, drinking, and merrymaking at earlier commencements often got out of hand. Fights were not unheard of", and commencements in various years have featured two-headed calves, an elephant, and Indians-versus-scholars archery competitions. Such goings-on were sufficiently common knowledge that in 1749, Bostonian William Douglass explained to a general readership that the siege and capture of Louisbourg had been "carried on in a tumultuary random Manner, and resembled a Cambridge Commencement."

Thus in 1781,

For the prevention of Disorders on Commencement day, [the Corporation] voted that the Honble Henry Gardner Esq: and the Honble Abraham Fuller Esq: Justices of the Peace thro' the State, and Loammi Baldwin Esq: Sheriff of the County of Middlesex, be requested to give their attendance on that day ...

Earlier measures had included the 1693 banning of plum cake‍—‌the enjoyment of which, officials asserted, was unknown at other universities, "dishonourable to ye Colledge, not gratefull to Wise men, and chargable to [i.e. the fault of] ye Parents". This was one of many efforts by Increase Mather (Harvard's president from 1692 to 1701) toward "Reformation of those excesses ... [of] Commencement day and weeke at the Colledge, [sic] so that I might [prevent] disorder and profaneness" ‍—‌for Harvard officials a recurring headache.

Sartorial regulations

To curb unseemly sartorial displays of wealth and social status^{[clarification needed]} the 1807 Laws of Harvard College provided that, on Commencement day,

[E]very Candidate for a first degree shall be clothed in a black gown, or in a coat of blue grey, a dark blue, or a black color; and no one shall wear any silk nightgown, on said day, nor any gold or silver lace, cord, or edging upon his hat, waistcoat, or any other part of his clothing, in the College, or town of Cambridge.

2024 Gaza war protest

At least several hundred degree candidates and faculty walked out of the 2024 morning exercises to protest the denial of degrees, pending appeal, to thirteen Harvard College seniors; the degrees had been withheld due to the students' conduct during a weeks-long "encampment" in Harvard Yard protesting the Gaza–Israel conflict. According to the Harvard undergraduate newspaper, The Crimson, the walkout had been "something of a foregone conclusion ... so widely expected by students and administrators alike that it could just as well have been added to the official Commencement program."

Honorary degrees

Several hundred Harvard honorary degrees (which with few exceptions must be accepted in person) have been awarded since the first were awarded in 1692. Notable recipients have included at least 14 U.S. Presidents, as well as numerous writers, artists, and Nobel Prize recipients.

In 1984 the Harvard Corporation decided that no honorary degrees would be granted at the 1986 commencement (marking Harvard's 350th year), ending controversy over whether Ronald Reagan would be awarded a degree. A Harvard official called the decision "the only graceful way out" of the situation; Reagan was nonetheless invited to speak at the ceremony.^{[clarification needed]}

George Bernard Shaw

In 1935 playwright George Bernard Shaw declined nomination for a Harvard honorary degree, urging instead that Harvard celebrate its three-hundredth anniversary by "burning itself to the ground ... as an example to all the other famous old corrupters of youth" such as Yale.

Responding to the prospect of being nominated for an honorary degree on the occasion of Harvard's Tercentenary celebration in 1936, George Bernard Shaw wrote:

Dear Sir, I have to thank you for your proposal to present me as a candidate for an honorary degree of D.L. of Harvard University at its tri-centenary celebration. But I cannot pretend that it would be fair for me to accept university degrees when every public reference of mine to our educational system, and especially to the influence of the universities on it, is fiercely hostile. If Harvard would celebrate its three hundredth anniversary by burning itself to the ground and sowing its site with salt, the ceremony would give me the greatest satisfaction as an example to all the other famous old corrupters of youth, including Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, etc. Under these circumstances I should let you down very heavily if you undertook to sponsor me.

A handwritten postscript read: "I appreciate the friendliness of your attitude."

Commencement speakers

2025: Abraham Verghese, physician, author, and professor
2024: Maria Ressa, journalist and media entrepreneur – (video; text)
2023: Tom Hanks, Academy Award-winning actor and filmmaker – (video; text)
2020 and 2021 (held in person in 2022): Merrick Garland, 86th Attorney General of the United States – (video; text)
2022: Jacinda Ardern, 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand
2021 (virtual): Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University, president emerita of both Brown University and Smith College
2020 (virtual): Martin Baron, editor of The Washington Post
2019: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany – (video)
2018: John Lewis, civil rights activist and US representative representing Georgia
2017: Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook
2016: Steven Spielberg, film director, producer, and screenwriter – (video; text)
2015: Deval Patrick, 71st Governor of Massachusetts – (video)
2014: Michael Bloomberg, businessman and philanthropist, former Mayor of New York City – (video; audio)
2013: Oprah Winfrey, businesswoman and talk show host – (video; audio; text)
2012: Fareed Zakaria, journalist, author, former TIME editor – ("We Live in an Age of Progress" video; text)
2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, 24th President of Liberia – (video)
2010: David Souter, former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (video; text)
2009: Steven Chu, former United States Secretary of Energy (video; text)
2008: J. K. Rowling, author, Harry Potter series – ("The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination" video; text)
2007: Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder – ("Great Expectations" video; text)
2006: Jim Lehrer, author and journalist – (video)
2005: John Lithgow, actor and author – ("An Actor's Own Words" text)
2004: Kofi Annan, 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations ("Three Crises, and the Need for American Leadership" text)
2003: Ernesto Zedillo, 54th President of Mexico
2002: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former US senator representing New York ("Civilization Need Not Die")
2001: Robert Rubin, 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury
2000: Amartya Sen, economist and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University ("Global Doubts")
1999: Alan Greenspan, 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve (text)
1998: Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and 7th President of Ireland (text)
1997: Madeleine Albright, 64th United States Secretary of State (text)
1996: Harold E. Varmus, scientist and Director of the National Institutes of Health (text)
1995: Václav Havel, last President of Czechoslovakia and 1st President of the Czech Republic ("Radical Renewal of Human Responsibility" text)
1994: Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States (video; text)
1993: Colin Powell, 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (video; excerpts)
1992: Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway
1991: Derek Bok, 25th President of Harvard University (text)
1990: Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
1989: Benazir Bhutto, 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan ("Democratic Nations Must Unite" video; text)
1988: Óscar Arias, President of Costa Rica and 1987 Nobel Peace Prize recipient
1987: Richard von Weizsäcker, President of the Federal Republic of Germany
1986: Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, 6th Secretary General of NATO
1985: Paul Volcker, economist and 12th Chairman of the Federal Reserve (text)
1984: Juan Carlos I, King of Spain
1983: Carlos Fuentes, author and diplomat
1982: John Huston Finley, Professor of Greek Literature Emeritus, Harvard University
1981: Thomas Watson Jr., businessman and diplomat, President of IBM, 11th President of the Boy Scouts of America, 16th United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union
1980: Cyrus Vance, 57th United States Secretary of State
1979: Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
1978: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize-winning novelist ("A World Split Apart" video; audio; text)
1977: Barbara Jordan, US Representative representing Texas (text)
1976: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, US senator representing New York
1975: Archibald Cox, Harvard Law School Professor of Law
1974: Ralph Ellison, novelist
1973: Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame
1972: Roy Jenkins, former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
1971: Alan Paton, South African novelist
1970: Antonio Carrillo Flores, former Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs
1969: Jean Rey, Belgian politician and 2nd President of the European Commission
1969: Stewart Udall, 37th United States Secretary of the Interior
1968: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (excerpts)
1967: Edwin O. Reischauer, diplomat and Harvard professor
1966: W. Averell Harriman, businessman, politician, and diplomat
1965: Adlai Stevenson II, 31st Governor of Illinois and 5th United States Ambassador to the United Nations
1964: Alberto Lleras Camargo, 20th President of Colombia
1963: U Thant, 3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations
1962: William McChesney Martin, 9th Chairman of the Federal Reserve (text)
1962: Lionel Trilling, Professor of English, Columbia University
1961: Alec Douglas-Home, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, United Kingdom
1961: F. Cyril James, Vice Chancellor, McGill University
1960: Robert Menzies, 12th Prime Minister of Australia
1960: Paul-Henri Spaak, 2nd Secretary General of NATO
1959: Pieter Geyl, Dutch historian and Utrecht University professor
1959: C. Douglas Dillon, 21st United States Under Secretary of State
1958: Neil H. McElroy, 6th United States Secretary of Defense
1958: Raymond Aron, French historian and journalist
1957: Erwin Panofsky, art historian
1957: Barbara Ward, British economist
1956: Herbert Butterfield, British historian and University of Cambridge professor
1956: John F. Kennedy, US senator representing Massachusetts (text)
1955: Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rican poet, journalist, and politician
1955: Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
1954: Henry Cabot Lodge, former US senator representing Massachusetts
1954: Robert Schuman, former Prime Minister of France
1954: Grayson L. Kirk, political scientist and 14th President of Columbia University
1953: John P. Marquand, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
1953: Lester B. Pearson, Canadian statesman and historian
1952: John Foster Dulles, US senator representing New York
1952: Joseph S. Clark Jr., lawyer and politician
1951: Thornton Wilder, playwright and novelist
1951: Warren Austin, US senator representing Vermont, 2nd United States Ambassador to the United Nations
1951: Charles Edward Wilson, President of General Electric
1950: Dean Acheson, statesman and lawyer
1950: Ralph Flanders, US senator representing Vermont
1950: Carlos P. Romulo, Filipino Minister of Foreign Affairs
1949: Ralph Bunche, political scientist
1949: Lucius D. Clay Jr., General of the United States Army
1949: Sir Oliver Franks, Baron Franks, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the United Nations
1948: Trygve Lie, 1st Secretary-General of the United Nations
1947: George C. Marshall, 50th United States Secretary of State ("What Must Be Done?" text)
1946: Maurice J. Tobin, 6th United States Secretary of Labor
1945: C. D. Howe, Canadian Minister of Munitions and Supply
1945: Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish scientist
1945: Ernest King, Fleet Admiral, United States Navy
1944: Walter Lippmann, journalist
1943: Joseph Grew, 13th United States Ambassador to Japan
1943: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1942: Henry L. Stimson, 45th United States Secretary of War
1942: Frederick Paul Keppel, former President of Carnegie Corporation of New York
1942: Raymond Gram Swing, journalist
1942: Frank Knox, 47th United States Secretary of the Navy
1941: Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the United States
1941: Clarence Addison Dykstra, Chairman of the National Defense Board
1941: Vannevar Bush, National Defense Research Committee
1940: Robert Sproul, 11th President of the University of California
1940: Carl Sandburg, author and poet
1940: Cordell Hull, 47th United States Secretary of State
1938: John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Scottish novelist and historian, 15th Governor General of Canada
1934: Harold W. Dodds, 15th President of Princeton University
1934: Charles F. Martin, President of McGill University
1933: Sir Ronald Lindsay, British civil servant and diplomat
1931: Sir James Salter, author and political scientist
1929: Ernest Barker, political scientist
1927: Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, British civil servant
1926: Arthur Currie, General of the Canadian Corps
1924: Owen D. Young, businessman, Dawes Commission
1923: William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canadian politician
1918: Rufus Isaacs, 1st Earl of Reading, British politician
1917: Cecil Spring Rice, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the United States of America
1914: David F. Houston, 5th United States Secretary of Agriculture
1914: Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, 5th Chief Justice of Canada
1910: George Walter Prothero, British writer and historian
1909: Sir Napier Shaw, British meteorologist
1907: James Bryce, British historian, statesman, and diplomat (excerpts)
1904: Henry Cabot Lodge, US senator representing Massachusetts
1904: Baron Kaneko Kentarō, Japanese envoy to the United States
1904: William Osler, Canadian physician
1900: Julian Pauncefote, 1st Baron Pauncefote, British diplomat
1898: John Campbell-Gordon, 7th Earl of Aberdeen, British politician
1890: Leslie Stephen, British author and literary critic
1886: Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair, British politician
1884: Richard Claverhouse Jebb, British classical scholar and politician
1878: Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, British politician
1875: Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist and historian
1871: George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon, British politician
1862: John Stuart Mill, British philosopher and economist
1860: Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, British diplomat
1858: Francis Napier, 1st Baron Ettrick, British diplomat
1853: James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, British colonial administrator and diplomat
1850: D'anne McDaniel, head of cgp department at ims
1846: Thomas Grenville, British politician
1844: Charles Lyell, British lawyer and geologist
1831: Richard Whately, British rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian