John F. Kennedy at the University of New Brunswick

John F. Kennedy's honorary degree from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) was conferred on October 8, 1957, during the university's fall convocation in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Kennedy, then a United States Senator from Massachusetts, received a Doctor of Laws from Chancellor Lord Beaverbrook and Delivered a convocation address on Canadian–American relations.

UNB was the first and only Canadian institution to grant Kennedy an honorary degree. The event is notable for occurring at a pivotal moment in his pre-presidential career and for the public prediction made by Lord Beaverbrook that Kennedy would become President of the United States.

The Beaverbrook–Kennedy connection

The visit arose from a longstanding personal friendship between Lord Beaverbrook — born William Maxwell Aitken in Ontario and raised in New Brunswick — and Joseph P. Kennedy, father of John and Robert Kennedy. The two men had met in England during the late 1930s, when Joseph Kennedy served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Beaverbrook was a senior minister in Winston Churchill's wartime cabinet. Their friendship persisted after the war, and it was through this family connection that Beaverbrook, as Chancellor of UNB from 1947 until his death in 1964, extended invitations to both John and Robert Kennedy to speak at the university's convocations.

Kennedy's political standing in 1957

At the time of the ceremony, Kennedy was serving as the junior Senator from Massachusetts, a position he had held since 1953. He had received national attention in 1956 when he narrowly missed winning the Democratic vice-presidential nomination and had published Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957. By October 1957 he was widely discussed as a potential presidential candidate for the 1960 election. A UNB news release issued on October 1, 1957, described Kennedy as "the most popular political figure in the history of Massachusetts."

The ceremony

The fall convocation of the Class of 1957 took place on October 8, 1957. The ceremony was presided over by Lord Beaverbrook in his capacity as Chancellor of the university. Kennedy was conferred a Doctor of Laws degree — the highest honorary distinction awarded by UNB.

When conferring the degree, Beaverbrook publicly declared Kennedy to be "the next President of the United States," adding: "When [JFK] has become President of the United States of America, I say to him, remember New Brunswick." On the day of the convocation, the UNB student newspaper The Brunswickan published a cartoon depicting Kennedy's path from UNB to the White House.

The convocation address

Kennedy's address, titled "Good Fences Make Good Neighbours," focused on the relationship between Canada and the United States. Speaking to the graduating class, Kennedy emphasised the importance of cooperation between the two neighbouring nations and called upon graduates to consider entering public life. The full text of the address is preserved in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, under the reference JFKSEN-0898-009.

Kennedy remarked on the shared democratic traditions of the two countries and urged a new generation of university-educated leaders to take up political responsibility:

Canada's only honorary degree conferred on JFK

UNB's conferral was notable as the only honorary degree Kennedy received from a Canadian institution. Following Kennedy's election as the 35th President of the United States in November 1960, the event attracted retrospective attention in Canada. The Kingston Whig-Standard noted that "some of the people at the University of New Brunswick were able to say 'I told you so.'" The Brunswickan reprinted its 1957 cartoon on election day 1960 with the caption "Local Boy Makes Good."

The Downey book

The historical significance of the Beaverbrook–Kennedy connection at UNB was examined at length in Lord Beaverbrook and the Kennedys (2012), written by James Downey, a former president of UNB (1980–1990) and subsequently president of the University of Waterloo. Downey, an Officer of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Association of Commonwealth Universities' Symons Medal, reproduced both Kennedy brothers' convocation addresses in full and provided scholarly commentary on their rhetorical quality and historical context.

Robert F. Kennedy's 1967 visit and degree

A decade later, Kennedy's younger brother Robert F. Kennedy followed a similar path, delivering the main address at UNB's fall convocation on October 12, 1967, and receiving the same honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Robert Kennedy was at that time a United States Senator and a leading potential candidate for the 1968 presidential election, but was [...] in June 1968.

External links

• Full text of Kennedy's 1957 UNB convocation address – John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
• Archival folder: UNB convocation, 8 October 1957 – John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
• Lord Beaverbrook and the Kennedys – University of New Brunswick

Related

• John F. Kennedy
• University of New Brunswick
• Lord Beaverbrook
• Honorary degrees