Commencement speakers at Harvard 1968 - 2008
Note: All titles are as of the date of the speaker’s Commencement address.
| Year | Speaker | Speaker’s background |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | J.K. Rowling | Author (speech) |
| 2007 | William H. Gates III | Founder, Microsoft Corp. (speech) |
| 2006 | Jim Lehrer | Author and journalist, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, LLD speech |
| 2005 | John Lithgow | Actor and author, Art.D., speech |
| 2004 | Kofi Annan | United Nations Secretary-General, LLD, speech |
| 2003 | Ernesto Zedillo | Former President of Mexico, LLD, speech |
| 2002 | Daniel Patrick Moynihan | Former U.S. Senator, LLD, speech |
| 2001 | Robert E. Rubin | Former Secretary of the Treasury, LLD, speech |
| 2000 | Amartya K. Sen | Harvard University's Lamont University Professor Emeritus, LLD, speech |
| 1999 | Alan Greenspan | Chairman of the Federal Reserve, LLD |
| 1998 | Mary Robinson | United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of the Republic of Ireland, LLD |
| 1997 | Madeleine Albright | U.S. Secretary of State, LLD |
| 1996 | Harold Varmus | Director of the National Institutes of Health, SD |
| 1995 | Václav Havel | President of the Czech Republic, LLD |
| 1994 | Albert Gore Jr. | Vice President of the U.S., LLD |
| 1993 | Colin Powell | Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, LLD |
| 1992 | Gro Harlem Brundtland | Prime Minister Norway, LLD |
| 1991 | Derek Bok | President Harvard, LLD |
| 1990 | Helmut Kohl | Chancellor of West Germany, LLD |
| 1989 | Benazir Bhutto | Prime Minister of Pakistan, LLD |
| 1988 | Oscar Arias | President of Costa Rica, LLD |
| 1987 | Richard von Weizsäcker | President of the Federal Republic of Germany, LLD |
| 1986 | Lord Carrington | Secretary-General NATO, LLD |
| 1985 | Paul A. Volcker | Chairman Board of Governors Federal Reserve Board, LLD |
| 1984 | Juan Carlos I | King of Spain, LLD |
| 1983 | Carlos Fuentes | Author and Diplomat, LLD |
| 1982 | John Huston Finley* | Professor of Greek Literature Emeritus Harvard, LHD |
| 1981 | Thomas John Watson Jr.** | President of IBM, LLD |
| 1980 | Cyrus Roberts Vance*** | Secretary of State, LLD |
| 1979 | Helmut Schmidt | Chancellor Federal Republic of Germany, LLD |
| 1978 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Nobel Prize-winning Russian Novelist, LittD |
| 1977 | Barbara Jordan | U.S. Representative, LLD |
| 1976 | Daniel Patrick Moynihan | Professor of Government, Harvard |
| 1975 | Archibald Cox | Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, LLD |
| 1974 | Ralph Ellison | Novelist, LittD |
| 1973 | Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh | President Notre Dame, LLD |
| 1972 | Roy Harris Jenkins | Former Deputy Leader Labor Party Great Britain, LLD |
| 1971 | Alan Paton | South African Novelist, LTD |
| 1970 | Antonio Carillo Flores | Secretary Foreign Affairs Mexico, LLD |
| 1970 | Louis B. Martin | Editor and Vice President of Sengstacke Publications, LLD |
| 1969 | Jean Rey | President Commission of European Communities, LLD |
| 1969 | Stewart Udall | Former Secretary of the Interior, LLD |
| 1968 | Mohammed Reza Pahlevi | Shah of Iran, LLD |
| 1967 | Edwin O. Reischauer | University Professor Harvard, LLD |
| 1966 | W. Averell Harriman | U.S. Ambassador-at-Large, LLD |
| 1965 | Adlai Stevenson | U.S. Representative to the United Nations, LLD |
| 1964 | Alberto Lleras Camargo | Former President of Colombia, LLD |
| 1963 | U Thant | United Nations Secretary-General, LLD |
| 1962 | William M. Martin | Chairman Board of Governors Federal Reserve System, LLD |
| 1962 | Lionel Trilling | Professor of English Columbia University and Critic, LittD |
| 1961 | Alexander F. Douglas-Home | Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Great Britain, LLD |
| 1961 | F. Cyril James | Vice Chancellor McGill University, LLD |
| 1960 | Robert G. Menzies | Prime Minister Australia, LLD |
| 1960 | Paul-Henri Spaak | Secretary-General NATO, LLD |
| 1959 | C. Douglas Dillon | Under-Secretary of State, LLD |
| 1959 | Pieter Geyl | Professor University of Utrecht, LittD |
| 1958 | Raymond Aron | French Historian and Journalist, LittD |
| 1958 | Neil McElroy | Secretary of Defense, LLD |
| 1957 | Lady Barbara Ward Jackson | British Author, LittD |
| 1957 | Erwin Panofsky | Art Historian, ArtD |
| 1956 | John F. Kennedy | U.S. Senator, LLD |
| 1956 | Herbert Butterfield | Master, Peterhouse College, Cambridge University, LittD |
| 1955 | Archibald MacLeish | Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, LittD |
| 1955 | Luis Muñoz Marín | Governor of Puerto Rico, LLD |
| 1954 | Grayson Louis Kirk | President of Columbia University, LLD |
| 1954 | Henry Cabot Lodge | Chairman of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations, LLD |
| 1953 | John Edward Shea | Superintendent of the Stack and Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Building, AM |
| 1953 | John Phillips Marquand | Novelist, LittD |
| 1952 | John Foster Dulles | Foreign policy expert, LLD |
| 1952 | Joseph Sill Clark, Jr. | Mayor of Philadelphia, LLD |
| 1951 | Charles Edward Wilson | Director of the U.S. Office of Defense Mobilization, LLD |
| 1951 | Thornton Niven Wilder | Playwright and novelist, LittD |
| 1951 | Warren Robinson Austin | U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, LLD |
| 1950 | Alfred Whitney Griswold | President-elect of Yale University, LLD |
| 1950 | Carlos Peña Romulo | United Nations General Assembly President and Philippine Ambassador to the U.S., LLD |
| 1950 | Dean Gooderham Acheson | U.S. Secretary of State, LLD |
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* Finley received an honorary LHD in 1968. |
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