Today is President’s Day, the federal holiday honoring the February birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln — our two finest presidents. (Bush comes in a close third.) During their presidencies, both Washington and Lincoln fought hard for American freedoms; neither one, evidently, fought hard enough to get us a day off.
But I’m not going to spend the day being bitter. Instead, I’ve decided to honor the presidents who have graduated from this prestigious university in hopes that Penn sends more men and women into the oval office in the future. (And not as interns.)
After all, Penn has to have an illustrious list of White House alumni, right? Our Ivy peers have long lists of presidential grads: Harvard has sent seven men to the West Wing, among them JFK and FDR; Yale clocks in at five, including Clinton; even Columbia has sent three men to head the executive branch over the years. So it only makes sense that Penn has… one alumnus-turned-president? Really? Just one?
Now to add injury to insult: it’s William Henry Harrison.




