WIAReport has compiled a list of women who have received honorary degrees from a group of the nation’s highest-ranked universities during the recent spring commencement season. All told, these universities presented 38 honorary degrees to women. Judith Jamison and Lisa Randell each were awarded two honorary degrees from this group of top research institutions.
Brown University and the University of Notre led all the top research universities by awarding four honorary degrees each to women. Dartmouth, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania all awarded honorary degrees to three women.
Here is a list of the honorands:
Brown University
• Katie King Crowley, a graduate of Brown University, is the women’s hockey coach at Boston College.
• Arianna Huffington is a syndicated columnist, political pundit, and founder of the popular news Web site, The Huffington Post.
• Lynn Ida Nottage, a 1986 Brown graduate, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
• Lisa Randell is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science in the department of physics at Harvard University.
Columbia University
• Eleanor Jackson Piel was the only woman in her class when she graduated from Columbia Law School in 1943. She is still practicing law today.
• Joan A. Steitz is Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale School of Medicine. In 1963, she was the only woman to begin graduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at Harvard.
Dartmouth College
• Roz Chast is an accomplished cartoonist. More than 1,000 of her cartoons have been published in The New Yorker.
• Elouise Cobell is executive director of the Native American Community Development Corporation. Her work has led to the reform of the U.S. government’s management of Individual Indian Trust Assets.
• Ruby Dee is an actress who has appeared on stage, screen, and television. She has been presented with the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.
Duke University
• Rita Dove, former poet laureate of the United States, is the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.
• Lisa Randall is the first woman theoretical physicist to be a tenured professor at Harvard University.
Emory University
• Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, is the third secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
• Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago Law School.
Harvard University
• Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is president of the African nation, Liberia.
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• Rosalind E. Krause is University Professor of Art History at Columbia University in New York City.
Northwestern University
• Barbara H. Liskov is Institute Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Judith Jamison is the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City.
Princeton University
• Susan Desmond-Hellman is chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco. Previously, she was president of product development at Genentech Inc.
• Judith Jamison is a dancer, choreographer, and actress who enrolled at Fisk University at the age of 15.
Tufts University
• Jamaica Kincaid is an award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction. She is currently a professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College.
• Pamela Omidya is a social justice advocate and founder of Humanity United.
University of Chicago
• Meemann Chang is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is a past president of the International Paleontological Association.
• Sofia Gubaidulina is a world renowned composer perhaps best known for her 1980 violin concerto, the Offertorium.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Mary Sue Coleman, who holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry, is president of the University of Michigan.
University of Notre Dame
• Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a human rights activist, and the founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
• Huguette Labelle is the chancellor of the University of Ottawa and chair of the board of Transparency International.
• Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and chief executive officer of the Acumen Fund.
• Mary Beth O’Brien has dedicated her time and talent to working with the Ladies of Charity USA.
University of Pennsylvania
• Renee C. Fox is the Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences at Penn and a pioneer in medical sociology.
• Sheryl WuDunn is senior managing director of Mid-Market Securities and president of the social investing consultancy Triple Edge.
• Joyce Carol Oates is an award-winning author, poet and playwright and the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University.
University of Southern California
• Ann E. Dunwoody is commanding general of the U.S. Army Materiel Command and the first female in U.S. military history to achieve four-star rank.
Wake Forest University
• Indra K. Nooyi is the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.
• Rebecca S. Chopp is the president of Swarthmore College, the highly rated liberal arts college in Pennsylvania.
Washington University
• Shirley Ann Jackson, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Yale University
• Joan Didion is a distinguished and prolific writer with a celebrated career as a columnist, essayist, and novelist.
• Janet D. Rowley is a physician, medical researcher, and the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago.