Johns Hopkins Gazette: May 20, 1996
May 20, 1996 -- Vol. 25 No. 26
Ogata One of Four To Receive Honorary
Degrees
Honors: Baltimore native Norman Hackerman is among those
being recognized for their contributions to society.
The following will receive honorary degrees from Hopkins
during the university-wide commencement ceremony on Wednesday
morning.
Principal speaker Sadako Ogata, the United Nations high
commissioner for refugees, was a child of the World War II
bombings of Tokyo. A scholar, academic and diplomat, she was
named to her current post in 1991, serving as the world's
principal advocate for the more than 27 million refugees who have
been driven from their homelands by war and political upheaval.
She has fought for food for the starving, shelter for the
homeless, medicine for the sick and compassion for the
dispossessed of Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya,
Mozambique, Ethiopia, Iraq and Liberia.
Sister Kathleen Feeley served as president of Baltimore's
College of Notre Dame for 21 years, continuing a career of
commitment to women, to students, to higher education and to her
community.
Among her many achievements during her years at the college,
Feeley supervised the fund raising for and construction of the
Sports and Activities Center and established Notre Dame's weekend
college, which opened the world of educational opportunity to
working women and men.
After leaving Notre Dame in 1991, she took a temporary
position as administrator for special education in Baltimore
City's 182 public schools. Feeley currently serves as executive
director of the Caroline Center, taking on a multitude of tasks,
assessing the needs of low-income women in East Baltimore,
visiting community centers and working to provide education and
job training to women who want to improve their lives. She also
was instrumental in raising the nearly $1 million needed to
renovate the 88-year-old building that will house the center.
Norman Hackerman is a chemist, a researcher and a teacher. A
native Baltimorean, he earned both his undergraduate and graduate
degrees at Hopkins. At the University of Texas at Austin,
Hackerman moved quickly through the ranks to full professor,
chairman of chemistry, vice president and provost, vice
chancellor for academic affairs and, in 1967, president. In 1970,
he was elected president of Rice University and steered it
through some of its most difficult years. When he retired in
1985, Hackerman left it fit and trim, with new programs, improved
facilities, a superior faculty and a well-deserved reputation as
one of the best universities in the United States.
Throughout his administrative career, he has remained a
distinguished scientist, earning membership in the National
Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also is a former
chairman of the National Science Board and a recipient of the
National Medal of Science.
William Julius Wilson has spent three decades as a
university sociologist and author. His groundbreaking research on
why poor urban neighborhoods have deteriorated has had a profound
impact in the classroom and in helping to shape the national
debate. Leaders at the highest levels of government, including
President Bill Clinton, have come to Wilson for advice on how to
revive our inner cities.
In his widely acclaimed book, The Truly Disadvantaged: The
Inner City, the Underclass and Public Policy, Wilson called
attention to the disappearance of jobs as a critical factor in
the decline of inner city neighborhoods. His findings helped
change the way scholars and elected officials viewed one of the
nation's most complex problems.
After a distinguished career at the University of Chicago,
Wilson is preparing to continue his work at Harvard University's
John F. Kennedy School of Government.