To the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Community,

On behalf of the Board of Trustees of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, I write for your advice about the honorary degrees that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ awards each May at its graduation.  In May 2009 the honorands were Geena Davis, Doctor of Fine Arts (D.F.A.); Robert M. Franklin, Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.); Mimi A. R. Koehl, Doctor of Science (D.Sc.); Ralph T. Perry, Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.); and Fareed Zakaria, Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.).  At the 2010 commencement the College will be honoring, Rennie Harris, James McCarthy, Jane Pauley, Elizabeth Strout ’77, and Teresa Woodruff.

Normally four or five in number, our honorary degree recipients are diverse persons of great distinction whose achievements are consonant with the values of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. The degrees are voted on by the Board of Trustees upon the recommendation of the Board’s Honorary Degree Committee.

The Board and the Committee would be happy to receive any names that members of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community might wish to suggest. The names should be sent to Heather Bumps, Office of the President, 214 Lane Hall hbumps@bates.edu.  Accompanying each name should be short biographical information, such as a CV or a relevant published description, and a paragraph or two explaining why you think your nominee meets the criteria for a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ honorary degree (and whether you or some one you know has access to the nominee).

Once in our pool, a suggestion will be active for at least five years. The Committee begins to draw up its list of recommendations well in advance of each commencement. Obviously, we have and will have many more candidates for honorary degrees than we have degrees to give, but the richer the pool, the more likely we are to be able to recommend nominees who represent our institutional aspirations.  For that reason, we welcome your ideas and participation in one of our most significant–and celebratory–communal activities.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

David L. Foster

Chair, Honorary Degree Committee

Board of Trustees

davidf@bvresources.com

Conferred

Honorary degrees, on May 31 at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ 143rd Commencement, to: Geena Davis, Academy Award-winning actress and founder of an organization researching gender bias in film and television; the Rev. Robert M. Franklin Jr., president of Morehouse College; biomechanics researcher Mimi A.R. Koehl; Maine philanthropist Ralph T. Perry ’51; and columnist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria.

Published

, personal narratives collected from refugees in the camps of Dadaab, Kenya, and from diverse Lewiston residents; edited by Assistant Professor of Education Patricia Buck and Rachel Silver (Booklocker.com Inc., 2008).

Awarded

The Harward Faculty Award for Service-Learning Excellence to Alexandre Dauge-Roth, assistant professor of French. Dauge-Roth, one of three Maine college professors to receive this Maine Campus Compact award in 2009, was honored for his efforts to engage students with survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

A Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to Sulochana Dissanayake ’09 of Pita Kotte, Sri Lanka, who will use the $28,000 award to study theatrical arts in South Africa and Indonesia.

William Stringfellow Awards for Justice and Peace to Rachel Salloway ’09 of Providence, R.I., for a commitment to social justice focusing on healthcare equality, and Sarah Standiford ’97, executive director since 2003 of the Maine Women’s Lobby and the Maine Women’s Policy Center.

Appointed

As director of writing, Hillory Oakes, effective Aug. 1. Oakes fills a new position that will coordinate, advance, and oversee the College’s robust efforts to support student writing skills and the role of writing in the curriculum (“Composition One-on-One,” Spring 2008). Previously she served as director of the Munn Center for Rhetoric and Communication at St. Lawrence University.

Presented

Genetic research involving the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, by biochemistry majors Nick Swerdlow ’09 of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., and Josh Linscott ’10 of Portland, Maine, two of 78 undergraduates presenting research to members of Congress in May during Posters on the Hill, an annual event sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research.

Retired

Anne Dodd, senior lecturer in education, effective July 31. Described by colleague Helen Regan as the “rock of the department,” Dodd started at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 1984.

Mary Gravel, assistant to the dean of students, effective June 30. Known and loved by legions of students, staff, and faculty, Gravel came to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 1983.

Gerda Neu-Sokol, lecturer in German, effective July 31. Neu-Sokol taught at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ for 34 years, and was recently praised by colleague Craig Decker for her years of “impassioned and inspired teaching, mentoring, and community engagement.”

Joseph Pelliccia, associate professor of biology, effective July 31, after 30 years at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Pelliccia led the establishment of a principal-investigator approach to biology instruction and was one of the first faculty liaisons with the admissions office and with athletics.

Confirmed

One case of the H1N1 flu virus in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community, reported by a student who suffered mild symptoms and left campus May 31. The student informed people on campus with whom she had close contact, and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ reported it to state authorities.

Died

Mary I. DeAngelis, a custodian for Facility Services from 1968 until 1985, on May 16, at 88; R. Bruce Huntington, computing technician for Information and Library Services from 1987 until 2003, on April 5, at 80; Ann M. Parks, manager of Design Services from 1997 until 2001, on March 7, at 70; Arthur A. Provencher, a member of the Dining Services staff from 1987 until 1999, on May 16, at 91.

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen

Rostropovich, who before coming to the United States was one of the best- known dissidents in the Soviet Union, will perform during the program, which begins at 12:30 p.m. in Alumni Gymnasium.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ President Donald W. Harward will speak during the convocation, which marks the 141st anniversary of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ founding on April 5, 1855.

Rostropovich, widely considered the world’s greatest living cellist, was music director of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., for 17 years starting in 1977. He now holds the title music director laureate.

Rostropovich’s fame as a cellist started at the age of 13 in 1940, when he played with an orchestra conducted by his father. He first performed in the United States in 1956 as part of a Soviet-American cultural exchange program.

He began his conducting career in 1961 and he led orchestras throughout the former USSR and Eastern Europe before moving to the United States in 1977. He is credited with moving the National Symphony into the front rank of symphony orchestras.

Among the composers who have written works for Rostropovich are Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten and Leonard Bernstein. He has received the Albert Schweitzer Music Award and the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Music Prize, previously awarded only to Britten and Olivier Messaien.

His other honors include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (U.S.), the Order of the British Empire (United Kingdom) and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (Germany). He is only the second non-native to be named Commander of the Legion of Honor in France.

Declared persona non grata in the former Soviet Union for his defense of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Rostropovich has returned to Russia several times in recent years. He has helped raise funds for Armenian earthquake relief, for children’s health care in Russia and for Russian military veterans returning from the Baltic states.

In October 1995, he organized a gala concert in Moscow to benefit the rebuilding of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a national memorial to the Russian victory over Napoleon. The church was torn down on Stalin’s orders in 1931.