Twelve outstanding individuals were awarded honorary degrees during Commencement exercises on Old Campus on May 21. The names of this year's honorands, short biographies and their award citations follow.
George Walker Bush
Doctor of Laws
George Walker Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, was born in New Haven while his father, the 41st U.S. president, was a student at Yale. The younger Bush grew up in Texas, and still has a home there. He returned to New Haven to study at Yale and received his bachelor's degree in 1968, majoring in history. He then enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard and was an f-102 pilot before earning an M.B.A. at Harvard University in 1975. Launching his career in the oil and gas business, he founded his own company, Arbusto Energy ("arbusto" means "bush" in Spanish). Bush moved to Washington in the late 1980s to serve as an adviser during his father's campaign for the U.S. presidency. In 1989, he and a group of partners purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. He was the team's managing general partner until he was elected governor of Texas in 1994. In 1998, he became the first Texas governor to be elected to consecutive four-year terms. After a hard-fought campaign for the presidency, Bush moved quickly to promote his administration's agenda, which emphasizes reforming public education; reducing taxes; reinvigorating the military; and improving and protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Few families in Yale's 300 years have so devotedly exemplified the University's commitment to public service as yours. As Governor of Texas, you used the interpersonal skills long ago evident to your Yale classmates to forge a bipartisan consensus on educational reform. Your commitment to inclusiveness, combined with your pragmatism and common sense, inspires us to hope that your Presidency will expand opportunity for all Americans and bring peace and prosperity to the wider world. We are proud to have another son of Eli in the White House, and we are honored to bestow upon you the same degree we bestowed upon your father and grandfather, Doctor of Laws.
Richard J. Franke
Doctor of Humane Letters
Richard J. Franke was chief executive officer of the John Nuveen Company in Chicago for 22 years. Widely regarded as the business community's leading advocate of the humanities, he has championed the value of a liberal arts education and the humanistic tradition. In 1988 Franke helped found the Chicago Humanities Festival, which brings together artists and culture critics from all over the world. In 1997, he received the National Humanities Medal from the White House for "bringing the pleasure of art and ideas to the people of the great city of Chicago." In 2000, he received the Phi Beta Kappa Society's National Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities. Franke's lifelong interest in the humanities was prompted by his studies at Yale, where he received a B.A. in 1953. He later earned an M.B.A. at Harvard. Franke was a fellow of the Yale Corporation for 12 years, serving as its senior fellow for six years. He received the Trustee Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Governing Boards in 1998.
At the John Nuveen Company, you built a successful business and a corporate culture that encouraged self-improvement, civic participation, and philanthropy. Locally, you created the Chicago Humanities Festival to delight and enrich your fellow citizens. Nationally, you have become the business community's most visible and effective public advocate for liberal education and the humanities. And your service to Yale is without limit. We thank you for your contributions to institutional governance as Senior Fellow of the Yale Corporation as we bestow upon you well-deserved recognition as Doctor of Humane Letters.
Ellen V. Futter
Doctor of Humane Letters
Ellen V. Futter has served since 1993 as president of the American Museum of Natural History, which has over 32 million artifacts in its collections. Under her leadership, the museum launched several major initiatives, including the construction of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, named after former Yale trustee Frederick P. Rose and his wife. A graduate of Barnard College, Futter earned her J.D. degree from Columbia Law School. She was a corporate lawyer in New York City before becoming president of Barnard College. At the time, she was the youngest person to head a major U.S. college. She reaffirmed Barnard's mission to serve women, built the college's endowment, increased the number of applicants and modified the curriculum. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the advisory board of the Yale School of Management. Her honors include the Barnard Medal of Distinction, the University Medal for Excellence from Columbia University and the Eleanor Roosevelt Leadership Award from the National Organization for Women.
With energy, intelligence, and imagination you have reshaped worthy institutions. As President of Barnard College, you established yourself as an impressive leader, strengthening the reputation of your alma mater. At the American Museum of Natural History, not even the sky has been the limit as you have pursued major initiatives including the magnificent Rose Center for Earth and Space. You bring respect for the past, passion for the present, and vision for the future of the institutions you have led. We are honored to award you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
Evelyn Boyd Granville
Doctor of Science
Evelyn Boyd Granville is the first African-American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, which she received from Yale in 1949. Born in Washington, D.C., she attended the city's racially segregated schools, and received her bachelor's degree from Smith College. After completing her Yale studies, Granville taught math at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and later worked in the Ordnance Division of the National Bureau of Standards on problems related to the development of missile fuzes. She then joined the IBM Corporation, where she was part of a team working with NASA to develop computer programs for orbital computations for the Vanguard and Mercury program. She later returned to teaching, first at the California State University in Los Angeles and then at Texas College, a small, predominantly African-American college. Although retired, she remains active in the field of education, visiting young students in disadvantaged areas to advocate for the study of math and the need for excellence in the teaching of the subject.
Your early love of numbers blossomed into a path-breaking degree here at Yale, as you became the nation's first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in pure mathematics. You have contributed to our nation's space program, but most importantly you have contributed to our nation's young people, as a professor of mathematics and an example and advocate of good teaching. Even in retirement, you have been tireless in promoting the importance of mathematics as you have visited countless schools and inspired thousands of school children and their teachers. We are honored to grant your second Yale doctorate, Doctor of Science.
Arthur Mitchell
Doctor of Fine Arts
Arthur Mitchell cofounded and is artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. He is a pioneering dancer, choreographer, educator and artistic director whose career has encompassed work on Broadway and in nightclubs, film and television. Born in Harlem, he attended New York's High School of Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet under the direction of renowned choreographer George Balanchine. He was the first African-American dancer to become a permanent member of a major ballet company, joining the New York City Ballet in 1955. He was a principal dancer with the company until 1969. Inspired by the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mitchell began teaching dance to children in a remodeled garage in Harlem in 1968. This became the Dance Theatre of Harlem, which has grown in size and reputation. Its alumni are represented in major dance companies throughout the world, and it has visited 40 countries, including China. Mitchell has received the National Medal of Arts and the School of American Ballet's Lifetime Achievement Award. He was recognized as a "living landmark" by the New York Landmark Conservancy and has been honored by the Kennedy Center
With athletic artistry, you have danced your way into the hearts of audiences around the world, from Broadway to the New York City Ballet and the Dance Theatre of Harlem, which you founded and continue to guide. Schooled in modern dance and ballet in New York and Paris, you have also mastered fund-raising, administration, and dance education, training thousands of young dancers, many of them African American, in classical ballet. Using art as activism, you have helped break barriers and challenge stereotypes. Your contributions are more than mere entertainment; they are life-giving and life-changing. We are pleased to grant you this degree of Doctor of Fine Arts.
Robert E. Rubin
Doctor of Laws
Robert E. Rubin was the 70th secretary of the U.S. Treasury 1995-99. In that role, he was widely credited with creating policies that contributed to the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. Rubin graduated from Harvard University and studied at the London School of Economics and Yale, where he earned his law degree in 1964. He was an associate with the New York firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton before launching a career in investment banking. He spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs & Company, where he became co-chair. In 1993, he was tapped by President Bill Clinton to serve as assistant to the president for economic policy. He also was the nation's first director of the National Economic Council. Currently with Citigroup Inc., Rubin has been a member of the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange and a trustee of the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations. He currently chairs the board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.
You brought to Washington the same attributes that brought you success on Wall Street -- thoughtfulness, intelligence, steadiness, honesty, and persuasiveness. As Director of the National Economic Council and Secretary of the Treasury, you turned a large fiscal deficit into surplus and guided the nation to an expansion of unprecedented length. More than once, you kept adverse developments in international financial markets from inciting global panic. Your excellence inspires confidence, and it inspires us to offer you your second Yale degree: Doctor of Laws.
Dawn Upshaw
Doctor of Music
Dawn Upshaw is renowned for her extraordinarily diverse repertoire, her mastery of classical opera and her championing of contemporary music, especially the works of American composers. Born in Nashville, she grew up in a suburb of Chicago. She earned a bachelor's degree at Illinois Wesleyan University and a master's degree at New York's Manhattan School of Music. Her career was launched in 1984 when she won international auditions and was invited to join the Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. She has since appeared in over 200 performances on the Met stage. She won two Grammy Awards -- in 1989 for "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" and in 1991 for "The Girl with Orange Lips" -- and was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year in 2000. Her recording of Henryk Gorecki's Third Symphony with David Zinman and the London Sinfonietta has sold nearly one million copies worldwide, topping both popular and classical charts.
With interpretive grace and a luminous voice, you are able to make the classical seem new and the contemporary feel familiar. With attention to American composers and a rare charisma for performing, you have distinguished yourself as an artist, musician, and educator. Your repertoire is broad, encompassing opera, music theater, new music, lieder, and folk songs. You have amazed audiences throughout the world, in concerts, with best-selling recordings, and on television. Your gift of making music makes music beautiful for us all. We join others in singing your praises by conferring the degree of Doctor of Music.
Harold E. Varmus
Doctor of Science
Harold E. Varmus, director of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, is at the forefront of both scientific discovery and public policy leadership, advocating the importance of basic research and of strengthening science education in U.S. schools. After earning a B.A. and M.A. in English at Amherst College and Harvard University, respectively, he received his medical degree at Columbia University. He later joined the faculty in microbiology at the University of California at San Francisco. In 1989, he and his colleague J. Michael Bishop were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery that normal cells contain genes that can cause cancer if they undergo mutation. This breakthrough helped demonstrate a genetic basis for most human cancers and led to practical applications in cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Varmus became the director of the National Institutes of Health in 1993. In that role, he helped win bipartisan support in Congress for the institutes' work and recruited scientists who have improved our understanding of such diseases as cancer and AIDS. His other honors include the Lasker Foundation Award and the Armand Hammer Cancer Prize.
You are a leader in science and public policy. Your Nobel-winning discovery of the genetic basis of cancer has led to advances in diagnosis and has transformed treatment of the disease. Scientifically skillful and politically persuasive, you strengthened the National Institutes of Health during your tenure as its director. You continue your lifelong pursuit of understanding the causes and cures of cancer in your present role as Director of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. With leadership, humanity, and devotion to service, you encourage support for basic research and science education in our nation's schools. We honor you with the degree of Doctor of Science.
Patricia Wald
Doctor of Laws
Patricia M. Wald serves on the 14-member panel of judges of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, which hears cases about wartime atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. She was appointed to the post in 1999 by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Wald previously served for 20 years as a federal judge, dealing with such issues as civil rights, the environment, utilities, communication, health care, and criminal and civil matters. She earned a B.A. at Connecticut College and her law degree in 1951 from Yale, where she was one of only a dozen women in her class. She clerked for Judge Jerome N. Frank of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals and then worked in the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter. For Neighborhood Legal Services, she worked on issues involving handicapped children, juvenile offenders, indigent women and others. She was an assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice when she was named by President Jimmy Carter to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The first woman to sit on that court, she became its chief judge seven years later. Her honors include the American Bar Association's Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the District of Columbia Bar Thurgood Marshall Award and the Yale Law School's Award of Merit.
In private practice and public service, your approach to the law is guided by a strong sense of what is right. From your first job in a factory to your appointment as the first female Chief Judge of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to your present position with the International Criminal Tribunal, you have been drawn to the work of protecting the powerless. Blending brilliance and humanity, you have retained the idealistic goal you developed here at Yale -- to do something to make people's lives better. You have succeeded in that and we are honored to honor you as Doctor of Laws.
Sam Waterston
Doctor of Fine Arts
Sam Waterston is one of the leading U.S. actors, with a list of credits spanning television, film and stage. In addition to his role on the acclaimed series "Law and Order"and "I'll Fly Away," he has appeared on television in "Oppenheimer," Friendly Fire" and Gore Vidal's "Lincoln." He won Drama Desk and Obie awards for his stage work, which has included roles in the premiere of Sam Shepard's "La Turista" and in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." He also earned Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for his work in "The Great Gatsby" and "The Killing Fields," respectively. Waterston made his acting debut at age 6 in a production of "Antigone" directed by his father. Still unsure that acting was the right career, he studied history and French at Yale, acting whenever possible, and spent his junior year at the Sorbonne, while also studying at the American Actors Workshop in Paris. After receiving a Yale B.A. in 1962, he moved to New York City and began building his extensive list of stage and film credits. He recently debuted as a film producer with the movie "The Journey of August King" and the television film "A House Divided," in which he also had acting roles.
Your compelling performances of complex characters entertain us and enlarge our own moral view of the world. You have given us insights into Abraham Lincoln and introduced us to Forrest Bedford and Jack McCoy; through your skillful portrayals, they have come alive. From your stage debut in your father's production of "Antigone" to award-winning performances of Shakespeare and television drama to your work in such films as "The Killing Fields," you have remained professional and personable, earning respect from your colleagues and a following from your audiences. We are pleased to remedy the effect of your decision not to pursue advanced study here in architecture by now granting you a second Yale degree: Doctor of Fine Arts.
Bernard Williams
Doctor of Letters
Bernard Williams is one of academe's leading contemporary philosophers. In his numerous books -- such as "Morality: An Introduction to Ethics," "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy" and "Making Sense of Humanity" -- Williams attempts to recall philosophy to a more realistic view of what ethical experience involves. He argues that human nature must be understood historically and that an idea of "fulfilling" that nature cannot itself provide a basis for ethics. Williams was born and educated in England, earning both bachelor's and master's degrees from Oxford University. He has taught at Oxford and Cambridge universities and at the University of London. He currently divides his time between Oxford, where he is a fellow of All Souls College and was the White's Professor of Moral Philosophy until his retirement, and the University of California at Berkeley, where he still teaches as the Monroe Deutsch Professor of Philosophy. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Williams has served several British government committees, chairing the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, which reported in 1979. He was knighted in 1999.
An acclaimed philosopher, you are an inspiring teacher and a true citizen, serving the academy and your country. With an unsentimental eye trained on the richness of human experience, you have explored the myriad nature of our commitments: to ourselves, to others, to the truth. You have cast doubt on the idea that we can understand our ethical lives in terms of theories of rationality or human nature. But this has not been the first step towards relativism. Instead, you have given us the courage to loosen our grip on the promise of rationality in exchange for a more realistic and profound sense of our responsibilities. We honor you now with the degree of Doctor of Letters.
Ernesto Zedillo
Doctor of Laws
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, president of Mexico 1994-2000, has helped create a new era of democracy and economic stability in his country. Born and raised in Mexico, Zedillo earned a bachelor's degree in economics at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City and a doctorate in economics at Yale (1981). Zedillo was working for Mexico's Central Bank when he was named undersecretary of the budget for the Mexican government. He later became secretary of economic programming and the budget, creating policies that helped stabilize the Mexican economy. Later, as secretary of education, he worked to reform the nation's basic education system. When his party's candidate for the Mexican presidency was assassinated, Zedillo ran for the post, winning with over 50% of the vote. As president, Zedillo implemented a series of sweeping economic and democratic reforms. By the end of his term, Mexico had experienced four years of economic recovery and increased support for social programs. Since leaving office, Zedillo continues to be active, chairing the High-Level Panel on Financing for Development, convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Thrust unexpectedly into the Presidency, you quickly drew upon your education as a Yale economist to rescue Mexico from crisis. You guided your country to unprecedented economic stability, while advancing the cause of social reform. With unwavering integrity, you have consistently placed public interest over self-interest, transforming your government's way of doing business. As a crowning achievement, you ensured that your successor would be chosen freely, engineered a peaceful transition, and ushered in a new era of democratic practice. A courageous patriot, you leave your nation a great legacy which we acknowledge with pride as we award you the degree of Doctor of Laws.
C O M M E N C E M E N T
2 0 0 1
Introduction
Baccalaureate Address
Honorary Degrees
Senior Class Day
Teaching Prizes
Scholastic Prizes
David Everett Chantler Prize
Elliott and Mallory Athletic Awards
Robert E. Lewis Award for Intramural Sports
Roosevelt L. Thompson Prize
William H. McKim Prize
Other Undergraduate Awards and Honors
Graduate Student Awards and Honors
Wilbur Cross Medals
T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S
Yale Celebrates 300th Commencement
Festival to feature everything from opera to aerial dancers
Alumni returning to campus for reunion weekends
ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS
Exhibit recalls Snowdon's 'irreverent' photographic visions
British Art Center hosting talks, trips, music during International Festival
International Festival of Arts and Ideas: Events on Campus
International Festival of Arts and Ideas: Tours
MEDICAL SCHOOL NEWS
Outreach program bringing seniors to the Peabody
Campus Notes
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