Obama Prompts Commencement Change at Barnard

Barnard College announced Saturday that its commencement speaker this spring will be President Obama. Barnard had previously announced that Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times, would speak, but the college said that, after the Obama possibility materialized, Abramson said that she would be happy to speak another time. Historically, presidents of the United States speak at commencements at three colleges -- one private college, one public college and one U.S. service academy.