Over the course of the last century, current and former presidents of the United States, as well as those seeking the nation’s highest office, have used the University of Michigan — and all it stands for — as a grand stage from which to launch the policies of tomorrow.

From the Peace Corps to the Great Society to Gerald Ford’s campaign for the presidency, many of the landmark storylines of 20th-century American history have roots tracing back to speeches in Ann Arbor. The appearances, like almost any remarks given by a president, follow a careful calculus of location, content and tone — including those events portrayed as non-political send-offs for graduates.

In the last 50 years, three presidents have visited campus to deliver the University’s annual spring commencement address. Today, President Barack Obama will become the fourth. And over the course of its existence, the University has played host to 13 different United States presidents — many on multiple occasions.

But presidential visits to Ann Arbor haven’t been run-of-the-mill campaign stops for candidates to simply shake hands with voters or kiss babies. Many of these presidential visits have involved major national policy announcements with far-reaching implications.

Political Science Prof. Kenneth Kollman said the state of Michigan — and its flagship university — could be the perfect place for such an announcement from President Obama.

When John F. Kennedy stopped in Ann Arbor to spend the night on Oct. 14, 1960 while on the presidential campaign trail, he stood on the steps of the Michigan Union at 2 a.m. to address a crowd of nearly 5,000 students.

Addressing the assembled group, Kennedy encouraged students to give themselves to service in a way that would benefit developing countries — a concept that would lay the foundation for the Peace Corps.

President Lyndon B. Johnson made a similar major policy announcement when he spoke at the University’s 1964 spring commencement. The first sitting United States president to visit the University of Michigan, Johnson’s arrival in Ann Arbor was greeted with much fanfare.

When he arrived on campus on May 22, 1964, he disembarked from one of four identical Marine helicopters outside of Michigan Stadium and was personally welcomed by University President Harlan Hatcher.

Inside the Big House, Johnson was met with the thunderous applause of 80,000 spectators in attendance.

While Johnson came to Ann Arbor for the supposedly non-political affair of delivering the commencement address, according to an article in The Michigan Daily at the time, “his appearance was never free of political overtones and the peculiar mystique which always surrounds the president of the United States.”

The address would become a seminal moment in 20th-century United States history. From inside Michigan Stadium, Johnson laid out his vision for the Great Society — a series of social programs that the president would push over the course of his years in office that sought to eliminate poverty and reduce social injustice.

“Your imagination and your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth,” Johnson told the crowd. “For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.”

Before the speech Johnson had occasionally used the phrase “the Great Society,” but it wasn’t until that graduation ceremony that he made it the linchpin of his presidency.

He concluded as most commencement speeches do, with a call to action for the graduates in attendance.

“Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a new world,” Johnson said. “So I have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision our reality.