Students in the class of 1968 decided to choose a figure from outside the University and invited civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who accepted the invitation.

Unfortunately, King was tragically assassinated before the ceremony in June.

His widow, Coretta Scott King, spoke in his place as the first non-Harvard Class Day speaker, Arnold says.

Other more archaic Class Day traditions have been discarded along with the circus elephants and clowns in favor of ones more suited to students of the '90s.

"Evidently years, ago, the whole class--then only men--would join hands and run around the trees in the yard in sort of a jog-dance thing," Arnold says.

"Seems pretty strange, but I understand the students got quite a kick out of it."

This Class Day tradition, although no longerpracticed, fortunately was immortalized for futuregenerations in a painting by Winslow Homer called"Harvard Class Day 1858."

Despite the changes in the events held and thespeakers invited, the fundamental purpose behindClass Day remains the same, Hunt says.

"It's still to celebrate the achievements bythe class," he says.

Class Day, Class Semester?

Class Day is no longer the only day tocelebrate class unity; class events now begin atthe start of spring semester and continue untilCommencement. The final week before Commencementis particularly full--with events such as the LastChance Dance, the Moonlight Cruise, the SeniorTalent Show and the Senior Picnic.

Until the 1970s, the duties of the classmarshals were relatively singular: to plan ClassDay. But according to Diane Jellis, associatedirector for classes and reunions at the AlumniAssociation (HAA), Harvard soon felt that moremoney was needed for reunions, and so the classmarshals were charged with expanding the number ofclass events to the dozens that exist now.

Many of the events that originated in the pastfew years were planned for fundraising purposes,Jellis says.

"I thought they could sit down and talk to me,that we could talk about how we could make money,"Jellis says. One of the first fundraisers themarshals sponsored was the Moonlight Cruise.

The long list of senior events planned thisyear is, in large part, the accumulation of theideas of successive class marshals.

"They made $250 [from the first Cruise], andover the years, they've added more events like thetalent show, the Last Chance Dance and theStumble," Jellis says.