1834-1900 | 1901-1930 | 1931-1970 | 1971-2000 | 2001-2016
Compiled by Greenslade Special Collections and Archives.
| Year | Speaker and Topic (if known) | Links |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | John Green '00, best-selling young adult author "Learn to Listen" |
Watch the video & read the transcript |
| 2015 | Martha Raddatz, ABC senior foreign affairs correspondent "Defining Success" |
Watch the video; Read the transcript |
| 2014 | Bill Bryson, Writer "Be More Than Good" |
Watch the video |
| 2013 | Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City | Read the transcript |
| 2012 | Aileen C. Hefferren '88, Chief executive at Prep for Prep "Bursting the Bubble" |
|
| 2011 | Jonathan Franzen, Writer "Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts" |
|
| 2010 | William E. Lowry, Jr. '56 H'99, Senior advisor to the president (ret.), John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation | |
| 2009 | Roger Rosenblatt, Essayist, novelist, playwright; Distinguished Professor of English, Stony Brook University | |
| 2008 | Anna Quindlen P'10, Writer | |
| 2007 | David Gregory, NBC News White House correspondent | |
| 2006 | John Kerry, U.S. Senator for Massachusetts | |
| 2005 | David Foster Wallace, Writer "This is Water" |
Read the transcript; More about the speech |
| 2004 | John W. Snow '61, U.S. Secretary of of Treasury | |
| 2003 | Richard Rodriguez, Writer and editor | |
| 2002 | Matthew A. Winkler '77, Editor-in-chief, Bloomberg News | |
| 2001 | Marilyn Yarbrough P'95, Professor of law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Kenyon trustee |
| Year | Speaker and Topic (if known) | Links |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Robert Pinsky, Poet and professor at Boston University (then U.S. poet laureate) | |
| 1999 | Frank "Fay" Vincent, Former Commissioner of Major League Baseball | |
| 1998 | Mark C. Rosenthal '73, Chairman and chief executive officer, Interpublic Media (then president and chief operating officer, MTV Networks) | |
| 1997 | Ulysses B. Hammond '73, Vice president for administration at Connecticut College (then chief executive officer, District of Columbia Courts) | |
| 1996 | George Steiner, Writer and critic | |
| 1995 | Kathleen McDonald O'Malley '79, U.S. district judge | |
| 1994 | Michael S. Harper, Poet and professor at Brown University | |
| 1993 | A. Lamar Alexander P'93, Former U.S. Secretary of Education, president of the University of Tennessee, Governor of Tennessee (later U.S. Senator from Tennessee) | |
| 1992 | Murray Lee Horwitz '70, Vice president for cultural programming, National Public Radio (later director and chief operating officer, AFI Silver Theater and Cultural Center) | |
| 1991 | James M. Borgman '76, Cartoonist "Where Do You Get Your Ideas? Some Thoughts on Creativity" |
|
| 1990 | William Boyd Watterson II '80, Cartoonist "Some Thoughts on the Real World by One Who Glimpsed It and Fled" |
|
| 1989 | Barbara Jordan, Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Professor of National Policy at the University of Texas and former U.S. Representative for Texas | |
| 1988 | James M. Borgman '76, Cartoonist "Paintings from the West" |
|
| 1987 | Richard S. Dreyfuss, actor | |
| 1986 | Roger Mandle, Director, Toledo Museum of Art (later president, Rhode Island School of Design) "The Value of Art in a Changing Society" |
|
| 1985 | E.L. Doctorow '52, Writer | |
| 1984 | W. Hodding Carter III P'84, Political commentator and chief correspondent for Inside Story (former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs) | |
| 1983 | William H. Gass '47, H'74, Writer and professor of philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis | |
| 1982 | Alan Alda P'82, Actor, director, producer, writer | |
| 1981 | Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Human-rights activist, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts | |
| 1980 | David S. Broder, Columnist and journalist | |
| 1979 | Elizabeth Hardwick, Cultural and literary critic and professor of English at Barnard College (former wife of Robert Lowell '40) | |
| 1978 | Sherman E. Lee, Director, Cleveland Museum of Art | |
| 1977 | Justine Wise Polier, Retired judge, New York State Family Court; former director of the Program for Juvenile Justice of the Children's Defense Fund | |
| 1976 | Dixy Lee Ray, Former chair of the Atomic Energy Commission (at the time, candidate for Governor of Washington, a post she held from 1977 to 1981) | |
| 1975 | Lloyd Tyrell-Kenyon, Lord Kenyon, Fifth Baron of Gredington | |
| 1974 | Philip A. Hart, U.S. Senator from Michigan | |
| 1973 | Shirley Chisholm, U.S. Representative for New York | |
| 1972 | No Speaker | |
| 1971 | No Speaker |
| Year | Speaker and Topic (if known) |
|---|---|
| 1970 | Joseph H. Blatchford, Director of the U.S. Peace Corps "To Define a New Reality" |
| 1969 | Wilbur J. Cohen, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare |
| 1968 | William Chapman Foster, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency "Arms Control and the Future" |
| 1967 | Abraham Ribicoff, U.S. Senator from Connecticut |
| 1966 | Harlan Cleveland, U.S. permanent representative on the North Atlantic Council "New Styles in Leadership" |
| 1965 | James Gilbert Bellows '46, Editor of the New York Herald Tribune "An Age for the Ever-Youthful" |
| 1964 | Rev. William Grosvenor Pollard, Executive director, Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies; priest associate, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee |
| 1963 | James Marshall Osborn, Literary scholar and research associate in English at Yale University "On the Growth Factor" |
| 1962 | James Barrett Reston, Political commentator and chief of the Washington D.C. Bureau of of the New York Times "Commencement of What?" |
| 1961 | Charles Habib Malik, Member of the Lebanese Delegation to the United Nations "Passing to the Offensive" |
| 1960 | Albert Charles Jacobs, President of Trinity College (Connecticut) "The New World Ahead" |
| 1959 | Chauncey DePew Leake, Professor of pharmacology at Ohio State University College of Medicine (at the time, president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) “Building a Balanced Biad” |
| 1958 | Moses Hadas, Classicist, Jay Professor of Greek at Columbia University “Amateurs and Professionals” |
| 1957 | Rt. Rev. Beverly Dandridge Tucker, Retired Episcopal Bishop of Ohio “The Cultural Value of Conversation” |
| 1956 | William Hafner Cornog, Superintendent, New Trier Township High School, Winnetka, Illinois “The Practice of the Liberal Arts” |
| 1955 | Arnold Danford Patrick Heeney, Canadian ambassador to the United States “The Things That are Caesar’s” |
| 1954 | John Fischer, Editor-in-chief of Harper’s Magazine “The American Heresy” |
| 1953 | Leverett Saltonstall, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts “Let’s Look Forward Optimistically” |
| 1952 | Crane Brinton, McLean, Professor of ancient and modern history at Harvard University “Our Modern Sense of Doom” |
| 1951 | George Sarton, Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University; “Our Modern Sense of Doom” |
| 1950 | Thomas Stanley Matthews, Editor of Time magazine “Education and Maturity” |
| 1949 | Merle Antony Tuve, Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. “Science and Values” |
| 1948 | Thornton Niven Wilder, Novelist and playwright “The Middle of the Twentieth Century” |
| 1947 | Christian Gauss, Dean of the College and Class of 1900 Professor of Modern Languages (emeritus) at Princeton University “From Pioneers to World Citizens” |
| 1946 | Rt. Rev. Beverley Dandridge Tucker, Bishop of Ohio “The Higher Loyalties of an Education” |
| 1945 | No speaker |
| 1944 | Richard Ainslie Kirchhoffer, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis |
| 1943 | Philip Curtis Nash, President of the University of Toledo “Winning the Peace” |
| 1942 | Bernard De Voto, Historian, literary critic, and authority on Mark Twain: “The Apprenticeship of 1917” Jack Charles Berno, “Priorities for Study” (class address) |
| 1941 | Rt. Rev. Henry St. George Tucker, D.D., S.T.D., LL.D., Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church Hallock Brown Hoffman '41: “No Matter Who Wins” (class address) |
| 1940 | William Allan Neilson, Retired president of Smith College: “Public Affairs and the Private Conscience” Lawrence Graeme Bell Jr., “The Intellect in War” (class address) ; Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr., “From Parnassus to Pittsburgh” (class address) |
| 1939 | John Strong Perry Tatlock, Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley; Old English philologist; expert on Geoffrey Chaucer |
| 1938 | John Farquhar Fulton, Sterling Professor of Physiology at Yale University |
| 1937 | William Henry Morgan, Arthur Paul Schmidt, Lawrence Alan Seymour |
| 1936 | Robert Edward Lee Boyd II '36 (class address) |
| 1935 | Wilbur L. Cummings, LL.D. '02, H'28 |
| 1934 | Fred G. Clark '13 |
| 1933 | Robert Bruce Hoffman '33 (class address) |
| 1932 | Carl Robert Swanson '32 (class address) |
| 1931 | John Bradbury Eberth '31, “English the Universal Language” (class address) |
| Year | Speaker and Topic (if known) |
|---|---|
| 1930 | James Milton Irvine '30 |
| 1929 | Wayne McMahon Singer '29, "The New Curriculum" |
| 1928 | Joseph Miles Poe '28 |
| 1927 | Kenyon Henry Eberth '27 Rev. Charles Henry Arndt, D.D., Class of 1889 |
| 1926 | Daniel McCoy Braddock '26 Clan Crawford '13 |
| 1925 | Hunter Kellenberger '25 Rt. Rev. Lincoln Rogers, D.D., Bishop coadjutor (later bishop) of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio |
| 1924 | Albert Doglas, Class of 1872, H'06 Thomas Jenkins Bexley class of 1900 |
| 1923 | Arthur Carl Lichtenberger '23 Rev. George Davidson '02, B'04, M'04 |
| 1922 | William Gregg Gehri '22 Guy Despard Goff, LL.D., Class of 1888 |
| 1921 | Kenneth Mercer Harper '21 Rt. Rev. Ernest V. Shayler, D.D., Bexley class of 1896 |
| 1920 | John Francis Sant '20 Constant Southworth, Class of 1989 |
| 1919 | John Lloyd Snook '19, "Our Indebtedness to France" Rev. Louis Eugene Daniels '02, "Education and the Pay Envelope" |
| 1918 | William Vincent Mueller '18 Josiah Kingsley Ohl, LL.D., Class of 1884, |
| 1917 | Alexander Rankin McKechnie '17 Rev. Arthur Dumper, Class of 1895, Bexley class of 1900, "Moral Preparation for a New Order" |
| 1916 | Joseph Stafford Trottman '16 William Budd Bodine, Jr., Class of 1890 |
| 1915 | William Clinton Seitz '15 Rev. George P. Atwater, Class of 1895, Bexley class of 1890, "Church Unity: A Survival of the Fittest" |
| 1914 | William Webster Sant '14, "One View of the Mexican Question" James Garfield Stewart '02 |
| 1913 | Clan Crawford '13, "American Rights in the Panama Canal" Rev. Robert L. Harris, Class of 1896, Bexley class of 1899, "The Call to Leadership" |
| 1912 | Harlow Henry Gaines '12, "Public Control of Monopolies" Francis T. A. Junkin, Class of 1884, "Our Representative Government Imperiled?" |
| 1911 | Horace Wyndome Wood '11 Rev. Charles E. Bryer '00, "The Higher Consciousness" |
| 1910 | Williams John Bland '10 |
| 1909 | Lemuel Ruevell Birgman '09 Rev. Jay Johnson Dimon, A.B., Class of 1898, Bexley class of 1901 |
| 1908 | Malcolm Cyrus Platt '08 |
| 1907 | Hugh Wilson Patterson '07 Rev. Cassius Marcus Roberts, Class of 1878, Bexley class of 1893 |
| 1906 | Frederick Hess Hamm '06 Albert Douglas, Class of 1872, H'06 |
| 1905 | Jacob an Vechten Olcott, U.S. Representative for New York |
| 1904 | Andrew Squire, LL.D., Class of 1899 |
| 1903 | Marcus Alonzo Hanna, U.S. Senator for Ohio |
| 1902 | Judge John Jay Adams, Class of 1879 |
| 1901 | Marcus Alonzo Hanna, U.S. Senator for Ohio George K. Nash, Governor of Ohio |
| Year | Speaker and Topic (if known) |
|---|---|
| 1900 | James Denton Hancock, Class of 1859 (College) Rev. William B. Bodine, D.D. (Bexley) |
| 1899 | Talfourd P. Linn, Class of 1872 (College) Rev. Charles D. Williams, Class of 1884 (Bexley) |
| 1898 | Asa S. Bushnell, Governor of Ohio |
| 1897 | Unknown |
| 1896 | No speaker |
| Prior to 1896 there were fewer commencement speakers, and each year hosted several orations from graduating seniors. Unlisted years had only student speakers. | |
| 1895 | John Brooks Leavitt, LL.D. "The Civic Duties of College Graduates" |
| 1894 | Col. John J. McCook, LL.D., Class of 1866 |
| 1892 | Hon. A. J. Ricks |
| 1889 | Rev. Dr. Jones "Profitable Education for Women" |
| 1884 | Columbus Delano, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior |
| 1878 | Theodosious Stevens Tyng, Class of 1869 |
| 1860 | Prof. Joseph Haven, D.D. (Philo) Hon A. W. Loomis (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1858 | Rev. J. B. Walker (Philo) Rev. S. T. M'Masters, LL.D (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1857 | Rev. A. N. Littlejohn (Philo) Hon. Stanley Matthews (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1856 | Rev. W. R. Nicholson |
| 1855 | Manning F. Froce (Philo) Rev. Clement M. Butler, D.D (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1852 | Hon. B. Storer (Philo) Hon. Thomas Ewing (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1850 | Hon. William Dennison (Philo) Hon. David Spangler (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1849 | Chas. Anderson (Philo) Hon. Josh B. Mathiot (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1848 | Rev. J. T. Brooke (Philo) Samuel Galloway (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1844 | Thomas Sparrow |
| 1843 | George Thompson "Prejudice as hindrance to human improvement and valedictory addresses" |
| 1840 | Daniel Drake, M.D. (Philo) Rev. S. G. Gassaway (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1839 | Rev. William H. McGuffey (Philo) John M. Stevenson (Nu Pi Kappa) |
| 1838 | J.W. Andrews (Philo) |
| 1835 | Charles B. Goddard (Philo) |
| 1834 | Salmon P. Chase, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury |