US President George W. Bush returns to Yale University today for the first time since he graduated in 1968 to accept an honorary degree from the elite Eastern school he kept at arm's length as a rising Texas politician.
|
|
George Bush
|
The president is expected to give a short speech to graduating students making light of his own checkered career at Yale, where he majored in history and earned average grades, as well as reflecting on the school's influence on his life.
The visit marks a homecoming for the Republican president, who was born in New Haven when his father, former President George Bush, was a student at Yale and whose daughter, Barbara, has just completed her first year at the university.
It also reflects something of a rapprochement between Yale and Bush, who is said to have been irked the university took until 1991 to bestow an honorary degree on his father and who chose for decades to stay away.
It's his first trip back to Yale, said a Bush associate, who said the president would honor a Yale tradition of making brief remarks at the outdoor commencement ceremony for the roughly 1,300 undergraduates receiving degrees.
Typically, these are lighthearted remarks, he added. He also will express his gratitude for the Yale experience that helped shape his life for t he better. He is honored to be returning for this special moment.
A highly selective private university founded in 1701, Yale has about 11,000 students split roughly half and half between its undergraduate and graduate programs. Undergraduate fees total 34,030 next year for tuition, room and board.