Johns Hopkins Gazette: May 20, 1996

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.


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