Former president Joe Biden visited the Harvard Kennedy School on Wednesday to meet with students at the invitation of his longtime adviser, Mike Donilon, according to the school.
Biden met with students in a seminar course led by Donilon, who is a fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics for the spring, according to a person familiar with the event. They said about 50 students attended the event and had an off-the-record Q&A style discussion with Biden.
In a statement, the Kennedy School said Biden joins a list of former presidents and presidential candidates from both major political parties who have visited the school, including presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Jeb Bush, John McCain, and Al Gore.
“As a school devoted to training the next generation of public leaders, we are proud to welcome senior policy makers and political figures representing a broad cross-section of views to engage with our students,” a Kennedy School spokesperson said in a statement.
Biden’s visit was first reported by the Harvard Crimson.
Sources familiar with the visit said Donilon invited Biden to speak with students several weeks ago. They said the former president’s visit to Cambridge on Wednesday was not related to the university’s ongoing dispute with the Trump administration, which has threatened the university’s tax-exempt status and froze $2 billion in federal funding over its handling of antisemitism on campus.
The Crimson reported that select students in the Kennedy School received invitations Tuesday to attend the visit but were not told who the guest would be.
The campus newspaper reported that the Kennedy School tightened security ahead of the event Wednesday and closed off access to the first floor of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum from noon to 6 p.m.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.