In a news release, a student leader suggested the appearance by Mr. Jobrani, who fled Iran as a child with his family in 1978, would resonate in a time of discord over immigration and Islam.

We caught up with Mr. Jobrani by phone in Los Angeles, where he lives. Some excerpts:

Q. Have you been thinking about what you’ll say?

A. Oh my God, Mike, I’m losing sleep over it. I’m serious. I wake up at, like, 5 in the morning with ideas and I jot them on my iPhone.

One of the challenges for me is, being a comedian, they expect me to be funny too. If you watch one of my favorite [commencement addresses] with Conan O’Brien at Dartmouth — so brilliantly written and so funny for 15 minutes or so. He’s just killing it. And then he goes into his story of being ousted by Jay Leno and so then it becomes poignant. And I’m just watching and I’m going, ‘Oh, my God. How did he do that?’

Q. You’ve become more political on stage. What worries you right now?

A. Trump doesn’t go a day without worrying me. It seems like everyday there’s something new. And then as a comedian I’ve been also saying, ‘It’s hard to keep up with the guy,’ because he just does something outrageous every day.