Duke announces 5 honorary degree recipients

The University will award five honorary degrees during its May 15 commencement exercises, President Richard Brodhead announced last week. An honorary degree is given as a decoration rather than as a recognition of studying at an institution.

The recipients will be Nobel laureate Roald Hoffman, environmental advocate John Adams, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and University of Maryland at Baltimore County President Freeman Hrabowski.

Hoffman received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Human Letters at Cornell University, where he has taught and conducted research since 1965. He is a widely published writer and has been active in communicating science to non-scientists.

Adams is a graduate of the Duke School of Law. He co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, a million-member non-profit organization devoted to protecting natural resources and preserving the environment. He has taught clinical environmental law at New York University’s School of Law for 26 years.

Robinson was elected Ireland’s first female president in 1990 and has since placed special emphasis on the needs of developing countries, especially Rwanda and Somalia. During her presidency, she visited these countries to increase awareness about human rights violations. She became the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights in 1997. Robinson is also a professor of the practice of public policy at Columbia University, chair of the Council of Women World Leaders and honorary president of Oxfam International.

Lagos, who will deliver the commencement address, received a Ph.D. in economics from Duke in 1996 and was elected in 2000 to serve a six-year term as Chile’s president. When Augusto Pinochet came to power after a 1973 coup, in which former head-of-state Salvador Allende was killed, Lagos went into exile and taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After Chile returned to democratic government in 1990, Lagos served as public works minister and education minister. Since assuming the presidency he has worked to improve the economy and correct human rights abuses committed under Pinochet.

President of UMBC since 1992, Hrabowski has worked to promote economic development in the Baltimore region. His research focuses on science and math education, and he is especially interested in minority participation and performance in those fields. Recently he received the prestigious McGraw Prize in Education and was named Marylander of the Year by the Baltimore Sun.