| Year - Commencement Speaker |
| 2012 - Dylan Ratigan ’94, talk show host and author |
| 2011 - Judy Woodruff, news anchor and journalist |
| 2010 – Alan Horn, president and chief operating officer, Warner Bros. |
| 2009 – Paul A. Volcker, former chair of the Federal Reserve |
| 2008 – Ruth Simmons, president, Brown University |
| 2007 – Charles D. Gibson, ABC news anchor |
| 2006 – James Underwood, interim president, Union College |
| 2005 – Roger Hull, president, Union College |
| 2004 – Kevin M. Rampe ‘88, president, Lower Manhattan Development Corp. |
| 2003 – Joanne Rogers, wife of Fred “Mr.” Rogers, television actor |
| 2002 – Jeff Greenfield, political analyst, author, CNN news anchor |
| 2001 – David Kessler, former commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration |
| 2000 – Kevin Klose, president, CEO, National Public Radio |
| 1999 – Raymond V. Gilmartin Jr. ‘63, CEO, Merck & Co. |
| 1998 – Rep. Victor H. Fazio Jr. ‘65, D-Calif. |
| 1997 – Robert Holland Jr. ‘62, president, Workplace Integrators |
| 1996 – Phil Alden Robinson ‘71, film writer, producer, director |
| 1995 – U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-NY |
| 1994 – David G. McCullough, historian, biographer |
| 1993 – Garry Wills, author, journalist |
| 1992 – U.S. Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, D-Mass., presidential candidate |
| 1991 – Marian Wright Edelman, president, founder, Children’s Defense Fund |
| 1990 – Richard Roth, CBS news correspondent |
| 1989 – Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, Ind. |
| 1988 – J. Peter Grace, CEO, president, chairman, W.R. Grace & Co. |
| 1987 – Mark Russell, political satirist |
| 1986 – Joseph A. Califano, lawyer, author |
| 1985 – Sydney H. Schanberg, columnist, New York Times |
| 1984 – Thomas J. Watson Jr., chairman, IBM; former U.S. ambassador to USSR |
| 1983 – U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y. |
| 1982 – William M. Ellinghaus, president, CEO, AT&T |
| 1981 – Jack W. Peltason, president, The American Council on Education |
| 1980 – Rep. John Brademas, majority whip, U.S. House of Representatives |
| 1979 – Ernest Leroy Boyer, U.S. Commissioner of Education |
| 1978 – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist, author |
| 1977 – Baruch Samuel Blumberg ’46, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine |
| 1976 – John Hope Franklin, professor of history, University of Chicago |
| 1975 – Albert B. Sabin, biomedical researcher, University of South Carolina |
| 1974 – Dixy Lee Ray, chairman, Atomic Energy Commission |
| 1973 – Howard Alan Simons ’51, managing editor, Washington Post |
| 1972 – Ruth Marie Adams, president, Wellesley College |
| 1971 – Ivan Boldizsar, editor, The New Hungarian Quarterly |
| 1970 – John H. Knowles, director, Massachusetts General Hospital |
| 1969 – Sen. Charles E. Goodell, R-N.Y. |
| 1968 – Paul A. Freund, professor, Harvard University |
| 1967 – Sen. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania |
| 1966 – Fred Pierce Corson, president, World Methodist Council; bishop of United Methodist Church Philadelphia |
| 1965 – Paul Miller, president, Gannett Co., Inc.; president of the Associated Press |
| 1964 – Leland John Haworth, director, National Science Foundation |
| 1963 – Bernard Kilgore, president, Wall Street Journal |
| 1962 – Edward Augustus Weeks, editor, Atlantic Monthly |
| 1961 – Lee Alvin DuBridge, president, California Institute of Technology |
| 1960 – Clarence Henry Faust, vice president, Ford Foundation |
| 1959 – Fredrick Russell Kappel, president, AT&T |
| 1958 – Alfred M. Gruenther, president, American Red Cross; supreme commander of NATO forces; WWII general |
| 1957 – Herbert Brownell Jr., U.S. attorney general |
| 1956 – Bruce Catton, editor, American Heritage magazine |
| 1955 – Sir Percy Claude Spender, Australian ambassador to the U.S. |
| 1954 – Irving Sands Olds, chairman, U.S. Steel |
| 1953 – Thomas John Watson, chairman, IBM |
| 1952 – Henry Knox Sherrill, presiding bishop, Episcopal Church of the U.S.; president, National Council of Churches |
| 1951 – Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tenn. |
| 1950 – Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of N.Y. |
| 1949 – Charles Phelps Taft, U.S. director of economic affairs |
| 1948 – John Foster Dulles, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. |
| 1947 – Gov. Earl Warren of Calif. |
| 1946 – Sen. Albert Wahl Hawkes of N.J. |
| 1945 – Rev. Samuel McCrea Cavert ’10, |
| 1944 – Joseph W. Barker, dean, School of Engineering, Columbia University |
| 1943 – Joseph Clark Grew, U.S. ambassador to Japan |
| 1942 – Wendell Lewis Willkie, lawyer, former presidential candidate |
| 1941 – Archibald MacLeish, poet, librarian, Library of Congress |
| 1940 – Honorable Hu Shih, philosopher, poet, Chinese ambassador to the U.S. |
| 1939 – Walter Sherman Gifford, president, AT&T |
| 1938 – Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, R-Mich. |
| 1937 – Bernard M. Baruch, economist, advisor to President Roosevelt |
| 1936 – George L. Kittredge, professor of English, Harvard University |
| 1935 – Charles Austin Beard, historian |
| 1934 – Irving Langmuir, 1933 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry |
| 1933 – Walter Lippmann, special writer, N.Y. Herald Tribune |
| 1932 – Sir Francis James Wylie, oxford secretary, Rhodes Trustees |
| 1931 – Sir Arthur Currie, general; president, McGill University |
| 1930 – John Van Antwerp MacMurray, chief, Far Eastern Division, U.S. State Department |
| 1929 – Paul Claudel, French ambassador to the U.S. |
| 1928 – Henry Fairfield Osborn, president, American Museum of Natural History |
| 1927 – Sir Robert Alexander Falconer, president, University of Toronto |
| 1926 – Franklin Henry Giddings ‘77, professor of sociology, Columbia University |
| 1925 – Sir Esme Howard, English ambassador to the U.S. |
| 1924 – Charles Henry Brent, bishop, Western N.Y. |
| 1923 – George Alexander, minister, former Union professor of logic & rhetoric |
| 1922 – William Sowden Sims, rear admiral, U.S. Navy |
| 1921 – John William Davis, U.S. ambassador to Britain |
| 1920 – Jean Adrian Antoine Jules Jusserand, French ambassador to the U.S. |
| 1919 – John Van Schaick Jr. ’94, minister; representative to Holland, Rockefeller Foundation War Relief Commission |
| 1918 – Robert Lansing, 27th secretary of state |
| 1917 – William Howard Taft, former U.S. President |
| 1916 – Myron T. Herrick, U.S. ambassador to France |
| 1915 – Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, R-Mass. |
| 1914 – Elihu Root, 1912 Nobel Peace Prize recipient; senator, R-N.Y.; U.S. secretary of war; U.S. secretary of state |
| 1913 – Laurenus Clark Seelye ‘57, president emeritus (1873-1910), Smith College |
| 1912 – William Milligan Sloane, professor of history, Columbia University |
| 1911 – James Bryce, British ambassador to U.S. |
| 1910 – Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, German ambassador to U.S. |
| 1909 – Joseph H. Choate, lawyer, former U.S. ambassador to Britain |
| 1908 – Gov. Charles Evans Hughes of N.Y.; U.S. secretary of state; associate justice and chief justice of the U.S. |
| 1907 – Sen. Joseph E. Ransdell ’82, D-La. |
| 1906 – Mayor George B. McClelland of New York City |
| 1905 – Laurenus Clark Seelye ‘57, president emeritus (1873-1910), Smith College |
| 1904 – Rev. William Croswell Doane |
| 1903 – Rev. William R. Huntington |
| 1902 – David J. Hill, assistant secretary of state |
| 1901 – Alton B. Parker, lawyer, chief judge, N.Y. Court of Appeals |
| 1900 – Whitelaw Reid, former ambassador to France and England, vice-presidential candidate |
| 1899 – Hamilton W. Mabie, author |
| 1898 – Henry Van Dyke, professor of English, Princeton University |
| 1897 – St. Clair McKelway, editor, Brooklyn Eagle newspaper; chancellor, N.Y. Board of Regents |
| 1896 – George B. Peck, general council Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway |
| 1895 – Henry C. Potter, bishop, N.Y. |
| 1894 – Sen. Joseph M. Carey ’67, of Wyoming |
| 1893 – Pliny T. Sexton, banker, educator and philanthropist |
| 1892 – General Daniel Butterfield ’49, composer of taps, U.S. Army |
| 1891 – Charles T. Saxton, lieutenant-governor, N.Y. |
| 1890 – William H. McElroy ’60, poet, editor, N.Y. Tribune and Post-Express |
| 1889 – Charles Emery Smith ’61, editor, Philadelphia Press |
| 1888 – Charles J. Noyes ’64, lawyer |
| 1887 – Richard L. Hand ’58, lawyer; leader, Bar Association in northern N.Y |
| 1886 – Sen. Warner Miller ’60 of N.Y. |
| 1885 – David Murray, educational advisor, Meiji Dynasty in Japan |
| 1884 – Henry Coppee, professor, Lehigh University |
| 1883 – Richard S. Storrs, reverend, Brooklyn Heights |
| 1882 – A.N. Littlejohn, bishop, Diocese Long Island |
| 1881 – Alexander H. Rice, former congressman; governor, Mass. |
| 1880 – John Welsh, U.S. ambassador to Britain |
| 1879 – John K. Porter ’37, lawyer, judge, New York City |
| 1878 – William Porcher Miles, congressman, S.C. |
| 1877 – George William Curtis, N.Y. Board of Regents |
1873-1876 – Various outside speakers (generally from Union University) and student speakers
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| 1797-1872 – Student speakers |
May 1, 1797 – First Commencement Ceremony (graduation class size: 3)
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