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Date: June 4, 1996
Presidential Appearances,
Honorary Degrees at Princeton
Princeton, N.J. Today, President Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting U.S. president to receive an honorary degree at Princeton University's commencement. President Clinton is the 18th American president to receive an honorary degree from Princeton, and he is one of at least 10 U.S. presidents to receive the degree in person.
Prior to 1895, Princeton awarded honorary degrees to at least six presidents in abstentia. Records are unclear whether Presidents Chester A. Arthur, honored in 1884, and Benjamin Harrison, honored in 1889, came to campus to receive their degrees. In 1895, the Board of Trustees decided that honorary degrees would not be conferred unless the recipient came to campus to receive the degree. The trustees authorized a degree for Calvin Coolidge, but it was never conferred.
Seven presidents have received honorary degrees before becoming president. The first was James Madison, a member of the Class of 1771 and the first president-of Princeton's alumni association. He received his Doctor of Laws in 1787 and served as president from 1809 to 1817. Other 'future presidents' to receive honorary degrees and the year they were honored were Thomas Jefferson (1791), John Quincy Adams (1806), James Buchanan (1850), Woodrow Wilson (1910), Herbert C. Hoover (1917), and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1947). Hoover received his degree at the 1917 commencement, and Eisenhower received his degree alongside President Harry Truman at Princeton's Bicentennial convocation, held June 17, 1947.
In addition to Presidents Clinton, Truman, Arthur and Benjamin Harrison, six other sitting presidents have received honorary degrees: James Monroe (1822), Abraham Lincoln (1864), William Howard Taft (1912), Warren G. Harding (1922), Lyndon B. Johnson (1966), and George Bush (1991). President Grover Cleveland received his degree at commencement in 1897 after leaving office earlier that year. Cleveland had just moved to Princeton, which he had first visited the year before when he spoke at the university's 150th anniversary celebration.
Three other presidents have attended Princeton's commencement without receiving honorary degrees: George Washington attended in 1783, the year he met with the Continental Congress when it was headquartered in Nassau Hall. He became the nation's first president in 1789. President Ulysses S. Grant came to commencement twice during his presidency, in 1871 and 1875. And President Rutherford B. Hayes attended in 1878.