HAIL! TO THE CHIEF
Presidential Visits to the University of Michigan
From the White House to the Big House, American presidents have been visiting the University of Michigan for more than 100 years.
Many of the presidential visits can be characterized the way Theodore Roosevelt summed up a daylong campus appearance in 1899: “I have had a corking good time.”
History was made here, too: John F. Kennedy announced the formation of the Peace Corps on the steps of the Michigan Union in 1960. And Lyndon Baines Johnson first spoke of the “Great Society” in his commencement speech in the spring of 1964.
The University’s three campuses have played host to 12 occupants of the Oval Office, including four sitting presidents: Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.
Clinton again appeared before a U-M crowd when he delivered the April 28, 2007, commencement address at Michigan Stadium. It was his third University appearance. He previously came to Ann Arbor as a candidate hoping for a first term in office, and later as a president who spoke on the Flint campus in support of his fellow Democrats.
Photos: U-M News and Information Services records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan