Word: 254th
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...last time a sitting American president had delivered the annual Commencement speech in the Yard was 1905, when Theodore Roosevelt, class of 1880, addressed the University's 254th graduating class. Two other sons of Harvard who ended up in the White House in this century--Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and John F. Kennedy '40--received honorary degrees, but neither gave a Commencement address as chief executive. Inviting a current president broke precedent for Harvard. Inviting Ronald Reagan, no less, whose politics have never been in tune with the "Eastern Liberal Establishment" whose capital is Cambridge and halls of power...