The University Record, April 10, 1995
Three to receive honorary degrees; Edelman, Bowen to speak
Three individuals–Rudolf Arnheim, professor emeritus of the psychology of art at Harvard University; William G. Bowen, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Marian W. Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund–will be recommended to receive honorary degrees at commencement exercises April 28-29.
The Board of Regents will act on the recommendations at its April meeting.
Edelman will give the main speech at Spring Commencement for all undergraduates at 10 a.m. April 29 in Michigan Stadium. Honorary degrees will be conferred at this event. Jennifer D. Fox will make remarks on behalf of the students.
Bowen will be the main speaker at the University Graduate Exercises in Hill Auditorium at 3 p.m. April 28. Doctoral candidates and Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies master’s degree candidates will be honored at the ceremony.
The schools and colleges also will hold their own recognition ceremonies for their graduating students. Altogether, some 6,000 students on the Ann Arbor campus expect their degrees this spring.
Arnheim, who will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters, immigrated to the United States in 1940 from Germany. He joined the psychology faculty at Sarah Lawrence College in 1943. He was professor of the psychology of art in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard in 1968-74, and taught at the U-M as an LS&A visiting professor in 1974-84.
Bowen, who will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree, has headed the Mellon Foundation since 1988. He was president of Princeton in 1972-88. He began teaching economics at Princeton University in 1958, was director of graduate studies at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and served as provost of Princeton, 1967-72.
Edelman, who will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree, began her career in the 1960s when, as the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Miss. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF). She served as director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University, and in 1973 began CDF.
