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Nobel Prize winner among five to receive 2004 honorary degrees
A Nobel Prize-winning chemist, an Emmy Award-winning journalist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning leadership scholar are among those who will receive honorary degrees from the University at commencement May 9. Dr. Richard E. Smalley, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of Carbon60, a soccer ball-shaped molecule known as a Buckminsterfullerene or "buckyball," will receive a Doctor of Science degree. Others receiving honorary degrees include Roger Mudd, Emmy Award-winning journalist and current documentary host on The History Channel; Dr. James MacGregor Burns, senior fellow at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Franklin Roosevelt; Carole M. Weinstein, vice president of Weinstein Management Co. in Richmond; and A. James Clark, chairman of Clark Construction Group Inc. in Bethesda, Md. Dr. Robert M. Rosenzweig, a consultant to institutions of higher education, will receive the President's Medal, presented to individuals who have rendered exceptional and meritorious service to the University, the nation or the world. The Rev. Dr. David Burhans, who is retiring at the end of this academic year as University Chaplain, will receive the Trustees Distinguished Service Award, presented to individuals in recognition of unselfish dedication and meritorious service to the University. Smalley is University Professor at Rice, where he teaches in the physics department. He was founding director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice from 1996-2002 and is now director of that university's new Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory. He is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors in chemistry. He is widely known for the discovery and characterization of C60, or buckyball, which, together with other fullerenes, now constitutes the third elemental form of carbon (after graphite and diamond). This discovery earned him a share of the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry. He is currently researching buckytubes, elongated fullerenes that are essentially a new high-tech polymer that conducts electricity. Burns has authored more than a dozen books, including the first biography of John F. Kennedy. His biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, was followed by Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom, which received the Pulitzer and National Book Award in 1971. Burns also wrote Leadership, which played an integral role in the development of leadership studies as an academic discipline and, in 2003, published Transforming Leadership: The Pursuit of Happiness. He is former president of the International Society of Political Psychology and the American Political Science Association. He became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. Mudd was a congressional and national affairs correspondent for CBS, chief Washington and political correspondent and co-anchor of Nightly News and Meet the Press for NBC, and an essayist and correspondent for the MacNeil-Leher Newshour. After receiving a B.A. degree from Washington and Lee University in 1950 and a master's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1951, he worked as a reporter for the Richmond News Leader and radio station WRNL in Richmond. He has received the George Foster Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting and five Emmy Awards. He serves as a member of the National Advisory Council of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. Weinstein received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Richmond and taught at St. Catherine's School for a number of years before joining her husband in the real estate management business. She established endowed chairs in international education and Jewish-Christian studies at the University, served on the Board of Trustees from 1988-92 and established the Carole Weinstein International Scholars Endowment. Weinstein and her husband, Marcus, along with other family and friends, funded the construction of Weinstein Hall, which opened on campus last August. Clark is chairman and CEO of Clark Enterprises, parent company of the Clark Construction Group Inc., which has been responsible for such projects as Oriole Park at Camden Yards, FedEx Field, MCI Center, the National Museum of Natural History and other high-profile facilities. He holds a B.S. in engineering from the University of Maryland. Rosenzweig is a former Stanford University administrator, having served as associate provost and adviser to the president. He was president of the Association of American Universities and recipient of the Harvey Cushing Orator Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, which awarded him its distinguished alumni award in 1988. He received a Ph.D. from Yale. Burhans came to the University as chaplain in 1974. For 30 years, he has overseen a variety of co-curricular, character development and diversity programs, such as Community Service Day, Bonner Scholars, Founders Week, Safe Zone and student religious organizations. In addition, he has provided pastoral counseling and guided campus discussions of religion, spirituality, ethics, morality, social justice and service. |
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