Fed Chief To Speak For Seniors

In the midst of a tumultuous year for U.S. financial markets, the nation’s most influential economic policy maker, Federal Reserve Chair Ben S. Bernanke ’75, will take a respite from his hectic schedule to address Harvard College’s graduating class at 2 p.m. today in Tercentanary Theatre.

Bernanke, a former Winthrop House resident, is the keynote speaker at Class Day, a celebration for departing undergraduates that traditionally takes on a less formal tone than tomorrow’s Commencement exercises.

After several consecutive years of Class Day speakers with comedic backgrounds, such as Conan O’Brien ’85 and Al Franken ’73, Bernanke will be the second straight Washington insider, following former President Clinton.

Last year, Clinton exhorted graduating seniors to engage in public service, but whatever wisdom Bernanke plans to bestow remains unknown.

“We didn’t tell him he needed to go a certain direction with the speech at all,” said Alexander J. Tennant ’08, the first marshal of the senior class, who speculated that Bernanke might give a more “lighthearted” address.

James H. Stock, economics department chair, said he expects Bernanke to discuss “the importance of economic knowledge.”

“Honestly, I’d be very interested to hear his advice to Harvard undergrads, what sort of careers they should be considering, and what knowledge they need to be leaders,” he said.

Bernanke was a star economics student in his undergraduate years at Harvard, winning the John H. Williams Prize for the most outstanding senior in the department, as well as an award for his thesis, entitled “An Integrated Model for Energy Policy.”

“We’re proud to count him among our graduates,” said Stock. “I’m delighted he’s going to be here.”

After Harvard, Bernanke earned his Ph.D. at MIT, where he specialized in the monetary origins of the Great Depression. At a 2002 celebration for the economist Milton Friedman—who had long blamed poor monetary policy for exacerbating the Depression—Bernanke famously said, “Regarding the Great Depression, you are right, we did it. We are very sorry.”

After finishing graduate school, Bernanke held teaching positions at MIT and Stanford Business School before taking a professorship at Princeton, where he would eventually ascend to the chairmanship of the economics department.

There, he built a reputation for consensus-building and for the ability to manage contentious committees, skills that likely translated well to his current duties as chair of the Federal Open Market Committee.

“The Board of Governors have greater influence than they did under Greenspan,” Stock said, referring to Bernanke’s predecessor. “You really want to be able to trust the wisdom of the Committee.”

Bernanke is a particularly relevant choice in light of recent market turmoil brought on by a fall in housing prices and the defaults on millions of mortgages, a surge in oil prices, and a decline in the dollar.

“He should have some interesting things to say,” said Jeffrey S. Bramson ’08, an economics concentrator. “As far as economics goes, he’s about the most qualified person.”

A 14-member subcommittee of the Senior Class Committee, in conjunction with members of the Harvard Alumni Association, selected Bernanke as the Class Day speaker, Tennant said.

A spokeswoman from the Federal Reserve declined to comment regarding Bernanke’s visit, but noted that the text of his speech will be posted on the Fed’s Web site at 2:45 today.

—Staff writer Maxwell L. Child can be reached at mchild@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Thomas J. Lawless can be reached at tlawless@fas.harvard.edu.