The University Record, November 23, 1998
DiChiera, Yang to receive honorary degrees at winter commencement
By Wono Lee
News and Information Services
David DiChiera, founder and director of the Michigan Opera Theatre, and Chen Ning Yang, physicist and Nobel Prize winner, will receive honorary degrees from the University at winter commencement Dec. 20.
DiChiera, who will be the main speaker, founded the Michigan Opera Theatre in 1971. He also is the founder of the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts and founding director of the Opera Pacific in Orange County, Calif., the only director in the nation to lead two acclaimed opera companies.
DiChiera is a composer of works for piano, violin, orchestra and voice, and he chaired the Department of Music at Oakland University. He was instrumental in establishing the Meadowbrook Music Festival. He will receive an honorary doctor of music degree.
Yang is the Albert Einstein Professor of Physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the Distinguished Professor-at-large of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He and T.D. Lee shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics for their novel analysis of parity non-conservation in the subatomic world. His research has provided the fundamental principles of particle physics and led to deeper understanding of the physics of condensed matter.
He also is recognized for his knowledge of the arts, history and Chinese literature, and for his contributions to international collaborations in science, particularly between China and the United States. Yang will receive an honorary doctor of science degree.
The recommendations for the two honorary degrees were approved by the Regents at their November meeting.
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