Walter Cronkite issued a challenge to the class of 1980

"Pick up your cudgels and man (and woman) the barricades" against overpopulation, pollution, natural-resource depletion, and nuclear proliferation, he advised.

Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite | Photograph by Harvard News Office

The class of 1980 invited Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in news at the time, to deliver their Class Day speech. Reportedly, when word got around that Cronkite would be speaking, his secretary received a call asking if Cronkite would also be granted an honorary degree. The secretary responded, “Well, I assume so”—and thus Cronkite was awarded an honorary degree the next day.

Read excerpts from Cronkite's remarks in this PDF from the July-August 1980 issue.

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