A Princeton Degree For a Yalie: George H.W. Bush Visits Princeton, 1991

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On May 10, 1991, Pres­i­dent George H.W. Bush came to Princeton’s cam­pus to receive an hon­orary Doc­tor of Laws degree and ded­i­cate the University’s Social Sci­ence Com­plex. This $20 mil­lion dol­lar project included the newly con­structed Bend­heim and Fisher Halls, as well as a ren­o­va­tion of Cor­win Hall. This Reel Mudd blog post includes video of both of these events, along with other scenes related to the President’s visit.

Pres­i­dent Bush’s visit was notable for sev­eral rea­sons. This cer­e­mony was Bush’s first appear­ance out­side of Wash­ing­ton DC after suf­fer­ing atrial fib­ril­la­tion while jog­ging at Camp David. In addi­tion, Bush’s speech (begin­ning at 00:50:26) was expected to be a major pol­icy speech, though a report indi­cates that the pres­i­dent rewrote the address en route to Prince­ton in order to tone down direct attacks on Con­gress (Daily Prince­ton­ian, Vol­ume 115, Num­ber 65, 13 May 1991). While still pep­pered with crit­i­cism of Con­gress, the President’s talk was mainly a dis­cus­sion of the Exec­u­tive Branch’s pol­icy mak­ing role com­pared to that of the Leg­isla­tive, and Bush’s per­sonal oppo­si­tion to cre­at­ing new bureau­cra­cies. The speech is also pep­pered with humor about the Princeton/Yale rivalry and the President’s place within it (51:42), as well as Bush’s health(50:39), the Nude Olympics (51:22), John F. Kennedy (52:02), and the Prince­ton alle­giances of Sec­re­taries of State George Shultz ’42 and James Baker ‘52  (52:28).
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Bush Receives his hon­orary degree from Pres­i­dent Shapiro *64.
His­tor­i­cal Pho­to­graph Col­lec­tion, Indi­vid­u­als Series, Box MP2

But, this cer­e­mony was not with­out con­tro­versy, includ­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of an open let­ter signed by hun­dreds of stu­dents who objected to the award­ing of hon­orary degrees to Bush and Sec­re­tary of State James Baker (Daily Prince­ton­ian, Vol­ume 115, Num­ber 64, 10 May 1991). Fur­ther­more, a crowd of approx­i­mately 250 pro­tes­tors, includ­ing the “George Bush Recep­tion Com­mit­tee” gath­ered dur­ing the visit to protest issues includ­ing the Per­sian Gulf War, Bush’s veto of the 1990 Civil Rights Act, Pres­i­den­tial treat­ment of HIV/AIDS vic­tims, and the nature in which Bush’s degree was awarded.
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Invi­ta­tion to Bush’s speech (left) and flyer adver­tis­ing the protest (right)
His­tor­i­cal Sub­ject Files, box 309
In fact, the award­ing of Bush’s hon­orary degree was an unusual event. While US Pres­i­dents often receive hon­orary Prince­ton degrees, and Bush was the 17th Pres­i­dent to receive this award, Pres­i­dent Bush’s visit and degree grant­ing occurred on May 10, sev­eral weeks before the tra­di­tional award­ing of hon­orary degrees that occurs in con­junc­tion with Com­mence­ment. This cer­e­mony was espe­cially extra­or­di­nary since Bush’s hon­orary Doc­tor of Laws was the first degree to be awarded out­side of Com­mence­ment since Lyn­don John­son received his L.L.D. in 1966 (see, and the cer­e­mony was also con­ducted in a closed-door gath­er­ing in the Fac­ulty Room at Nas­sau Hall, instead of the usual grounds out­side that building.
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Anti Bush Pro­tes­tors. His­tor­i­cal Photograph
Col­lec­tion, Cam­pus Life Series, Box SP9
Aside from Pres­i­dent Bush, sev­eral other notable indi­vid­u­als gath­ered to cel­e­brate this occa­sion, includ­ing Gov­er­nor James Flo­rio and for­mer Prince­ton Pres­i­dents Robert Goheen and William Bowen. The con­fer­ring of the degree included a vari­ety of speeches from indi­vid­u­als includ­ing Edmund H. Car­pen­ter II ’43 (00:07:15) and James A. Hen­der­son ’56 (00:04:20), while the Ded­i­ca­tion of the Corwin-Bendheim-Fischer Com­plex included speeches from among oth­ers Gov­er­nor Flo­rio (00:36:54), Dean of the Chapel Joseph C. Williamson (00:36:57), and Pres­i­dent Harold Shapiro (00:39:43).
The film was orig­i­nally broad­cast on the C-TEC cable chan­nel and hosted by Princeton’s Andrea Diehl (Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent) and Nick Mor­gan (Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment Com­mu­ni­ca­tions). Last­ing about an hour and twenty six min­utes, it also includes scenes such as Bush’s arrival via Marine One (0:00:10), the con­fer­ring of the degree (0:08:45), the Pres­i­den­tial ded­i­ca­tion speech at the Social Sci­ences Com­plex, and inter­views with Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dick Zim­mer (1:14:57), and Prince­ton Bor­ough and Town­ship may­ors Mar­vin Reed and Richard Wood­bridge  (1:19:14).
More infor­ma­tion, along with pho­tographs con­cern­ing Bush’s visit can be found in:

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