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Date: June 3, 1997
Princeton University Awards
Seven Honorary Degrees
PRINCETON, N.J., June 3 -- Princeton University awarded seven honorary degrees at its 250th Commencement exercises this morning. The University orator, Robert H. Rawson, Class of 1966, presented the candidates to University President Harold T. Shapiro, who conferred the degrees.
Bruce Alberts, Doctor of Science
James E. Burke, Doctor of Laws
Larry Doby, Doctor of Humanities
Mamphela Aletta Ramphele, Doctor of Laws
Stuart John Saunders, Doctor of Laws
Carl E. Schorske, Doctor of Humane Letters
Homer A. Thompson, Doctor of Humane Letters
Bruce Alberts, Doctor of Science
Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., is a distinguished biochemist recognized in particular for his extensive study of the protein complexes that allow chromosomes to be replicated, as required for a living cell to divide. After earning a doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University, he joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1966. In 1976 he was appointed professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, where he taught and was chair of the department until his appointment to the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. A distinguished scholar, Dr. Alberts also has long been committed to the improvement of education, serving on national boards and committees to strengthen the teaching of science.
Harvard University, A.B., 1960; Ph.D., 1965
As his elegant techniques unfolded the complexes of proteins that govern the replication of DNA and the reproduction of life, his broad learning and clear expositions now unravel the complexities of the molecular biology of the cell for new generations of researchers. Looking to replication beyond the laboratory, he has enfolded scientists and teachers in partnerships to reshape the teaching of science in our schools and to enlarge the concept of a life in science. Emphasizing the responsibilities that accompany excellence, he is leading the nation's research community to renewed engagements with the needs and concerns of the society from which it draws nurture and support.
James E. Burke, Doctor of Laws
James E. Burke retired as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson in 1989 after over 40 years with that company. During his 15 years of leadership, the company earned a reputation as a model for responsible corporate citizenship. His own reputation for direct, honest dealings with consumers was underscored as a result of the "Tylenol scare," when cyanide was discovered in tampered samples of the product. Mr. Burke is one of the country's foremost experts on reducing demand for illegal drugs, and since he became chairman of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, that organization has undertaken the largest public service media campaign in history. He also serves as chairman of the Business Enterprise Trust. He is a long-time resident of Princeton.
Holy Cross College, B.A., 1947; Harvard University, M.B.A., 1949
Believing that "every relationship that works is based on trust, and you don't develop trust without moral behavior," he averted corporate disaster by asserting corporate responsibility. When Tylenol fell victim to terror, he put compassion before cost to maintain the public's confidence in a company synonymous with baby powder and band-aids. Having brought comfort and reassurance to a nation suddenly fearful of drugs that heal, he now leads a coalition of corporate citizens to focus our attention on drugs that kill.
Larry Doby, Doctor of Humanities
Larry Doby became the first African American to play in major league baseball's American League on July 5, 1947, when he signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians less than three months after Jackie Robinson's debut with the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers. A high school star in four sports in Patterson, New Jersey, Doby began his professional baseball career with the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, leading them to the Negro World Series championship in 1946. With the Indians, Doby became the first African American to hit a World Series home run and to play on a World Series championship team (1948), became the first African American to lead the major leagues in home runs (1952), and played in six consecutive All-Star games. In 1978 he became only the second African American manager in major league history. A resident of Montclair, New Jersey, he currently serves as a special assistant to the president of the American League.
Fifty years ago this spring he participated in one of the great transformations of American sport and American society as the first African American player in major league baseball's American League. A pioneer who paved the way for others and a gifted athlete at the plate and in the field, his courage and character left an indelible imprint on our national pastime and our increasingly multiracial society. We salute his spirit and his achievement, and his continuing effort to open even wider the doors of opportunity to all.
Mamphela Aletta Ramphele, Doctor of Laws
A physician and an anthropologist, Mamphela Ramphele was installed in 1996 as vice chancellor (president) of the University of Cape Town (UCT), one of South Africa's most distinguished universities. Her political career began as a student when she worked to end apartheid as a member of the Black Consciousness Movement (which she helped found with Steven Biko). The government placed her in internal exile for seven years. During this time, she established the Ithuseng Community Health Program in Tzaneen, northern Transvaal. She joined UCT in 1984 and co-edited Uprooting Poverty: The South African Challenge , generally considered to be the definitive study of the socio-economic problems facing South Africa. In 1991, she became deputy vice chancellor of UCT. In that post, she played a pivotal role in the university's transformation while continuing her own research.
University of Natal, MB.Ch.B., 1972; University of South Africa, B.Com., 1983; University of Cape Town, Ph.D., 1991
Her life personifies the trials, the anguish, and, ultimately, the triumph of the struggle for justice and democracy in South Africa. An apartheid education did not prevent her from becoming a doctor and then a scholar; banishment did not diminish her commitment to community service and justice. In the new South Africa, she is a thoughtful, compelling, and courageous voice for change. We look forward with confidence to the great things that this friend of Princeton and the university she leads will accomplish in the years to come.
Stuart John Saunders, Doctor of Laws
Author of nearly two hundred papers on liver disease, Stuart John Saunders was, successively, professor of medicine, chair of the Department of Medicine, deputy vice chancellor, and, from 1981 to 1996, vice chancellor (president) of the University of Cape Town (UCT). As vice chancellor, he was a courageous leader who broadened access for black students well in advance of changes in government policy. Despite the Group Areas Act, he housed black students on campus; he challenged government attempts to limit freedom of expression on campus; and he led a delegation to meet the then-banned African National Congress in Zambia.
Dr. Saunders began a process of transformation that led, in his last year in office, to an entering class at UCT that was more than fifty percent black. In 1995, Dr. Saunders signed an agreement allowing Princeton students to study at UCT, the first such agreement for Princeton with a foreign university.
University of Cape Town, MB.Ch.B., 1953; University of Cape Town, M.D., 1965
In the face of overwhelming odds, he instituted an aggressive program of reform that transformed his university and made it a leading institution in the new South Africa. While overcoming the many forces resistant to change, he helped to make his university a center of research excellence not only for South Africa but for the entire African continent. As scientist, doctor, university administrator, and national leader, he perfected the art of acting boldly while building consensus to defend the causes of academic freedom, democracy, and equality. By his example he taught us the difference that one individual can make.
Carl E. Schorske, Doctor of Humane Letters
Carl E. Schorske is Princeton University's Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus. Recruited to Princeton in 1969 from the University of California at Berkeley, Professor Schorske retired from the faculty in 1980. His teaching, research and writings have gained international acclaim in part because of their extraordinary blending of art history, European political and cultural life, international history, urban development, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and the emergence of 20th-century culture. In 1981 his Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture won a Pulitzer Prize. His distinction as a scholar is matched by his outstanding teaching, which he has described as a vehicle for intellectual inquiry and discovery on the part of both professor and student -- the professor acting as lead explorer in the search for greater understanding, the student stimulated to join in by force of the professor's enthusiasm.
Columbia College, A.B., 1936; Harvard University, M.A., 1937; Ph.D., 1950
In unforgettable lectures, magnetic teaching, and exquisite prose, he has made lost worlds of mind and culture come alive. From Vienna to Budapest, from politics to painting, from Freud's interpretation of dreams to Mahler's reinterpretation of form, he has given us an indelible portrait of the birth of urban modernism at the last century's end. In the field of European cultural studies that he helped so much to found, his meticulously crafted scholarship inspires, illuminates, and challenges.
Homer A. Thompson, Doctor of Humane Letters
Homer Thompson is professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. From 1947 to 1968 he was the chief archaeologist at the excavation by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens of the ancient Athenian market place, the Agora. His work in the Agora helped revolutionize our understanding of Greek art, architecture, society, and democracy; his efforts at architectural preservation and environmental conservation in the area around the Acropolis have shaped the city of Athens in the post-war period. A member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1947 to 1977, Professor Thompson has often been a visiting member of Princeton University's faculty, and he has taught generations of students the techniques of excavation as well as the importance of the artifacts they discover. Since his retirement he has continued to contribute numerous monographs and articles to the studies of classical archaeology, Hellenism, and the city of Athens.
University of British Columbia, B.A., 1925; M.A., 1927; University of Michigan, Ph.D., 1929
He has excavated and reconstructed the heart of ancient Athens, the Agora, where the accomplishments and fissures of democracy first emerged. He has molded our understanding of the architecture, the art, the history, and the politics of his beloved city and, in the process, has formed two generations of archaeologists and shaped our understanding of ourselves. He has been called a part of the history of Athens, and, for the past fifty years, as colleague, teacher, and friend, he has been a part of the history of Princeton as well.