President (history of the term)
The title president, held by officials of many organizations, companies, universities, and countries, derives ultimately from the Latin prae- "before + sedere "to sit." As such, it originally referred to the presiding officer or chairman of a gathering. This usage of the term survives to this day in such offices as President of the Board of Trade or Lord President of the Council in the United Kingdom; and "President of the Senate" (one of the rÃÂôles constitutionally assigned to the Vice-President of the United States. The officiating officer at certain Anglican religious services, too, is sometimes called the "President" in this sense.However, the term president is more commonly used today in reference to an officer with executive powers which extend beyond meetings and gatherings. In particular, many heads of state are called "presidents." This usage can be traced to the United States Constitution of 1787, which created the office of President of the United States.
Where did the drafters of the new constitution find the term? Certainly previous American governments had included "Presidents" (see Continental Congress and President of the United States in Congress Assembled), but these were presiding officers in the older sense. It has been suggested, rather, that the executive use of the term was in fact borrowed from early American colleges and universities, which were usually headed by a president.
European universities were typically headed by an official called the "Chancellor", but America's first institutions of higher learning (such as Harvard and Yale) didn't resemble a full-sized university so much as one of its constituent colleges. And a number of colleges at Cambridge featured an official called the "President." The head, for instance, of Magdalene College, Cambridge was called the master and his second the president. The first president of Harvard, Henry Dunster, had been educated at Magdalene; so some have speculated that he borrowed the term out of a sense of humility, considering himself only a temporary place-holder.