On May 21, six distinguished individuals will be recognized for their contributions to the world by being presented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from The Johns Hopkins University.

Rahmi Mustafa Koç, Corbin Gwaltney, Sam Shapiro, Leon Schlossberg and Rita Sussmuth will receive their degrees at the university-wide commencement ceremony at 9:30 a.m.; Elizabeth Dole will receive hers at the undergraduate diploma award ceremony, at which she will be the guest speaker, at 2:30 p.m. Both events are in the Gilman Quadrangle. The six recipients are as follows:

Elizabeth Dole
Public servant
In recognition of vigorous commitment to public service and stewardship

Elizabeth Dole, head of the American Red Cross, has served five U.S. presidents and, as wife of presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator Bob Dole, was a powerful voice for themes of national significance during the 1996 presidential campaign.
   Dole worked in the Nixon administration, first in consumer affairs, then for five years on the Federal Trade Commission. In the Reagan administration, she became the first woman to hold the post of secretary of transportation, and in 1989, she was appointed secretary of labor by President Bush. In 1991, she was named president of the American Red Cross.

Rahmi Mustafa Koç
Turkish businessman
For outstanding contributions in business and philanthropy

The son of one of Turkey's premier businessmen, Rahmi Mustafa Koç was born to a dual obligation: to develop the enterprises his father founded and to become a leading citizen. He completed his education at Hopkins in the 1950s and returned to Turkey, working with Koç Holding, the family business known as Turkey's largest and best-managed enterprise, guiding more than 125 individual companies and employing 36,000 people.
   The Koç family has enhanced Turkey's prosperity by sponsoring public projects including a hospital and a museum and by founding and entirely funding a university.
   Koç also has assisted Turkish students studying at the Johns Hopkins Bologna Center.

Corbin Gwaltney
Editor
For outstanding service to education and its professionals

Corbin Gwaltney's weekly publication, the Chronicle of Higher Education, is the primary news source for academic professionals throughout the country. His love of higher education began at Hopkins, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1943. After teaching in the English Department, he was founding editor of Johns Hopkins Magazine from 1949 to 1959.
   From the basement of 3301 N. Charles St., he and other alumni editors began to publish a weekly newsletter called the 15-minute Report, which, by 1966, had spawned the Chronicle of Higher Education. Gwaltney has been its editor in chief for 22 years.

Sam Shapiro
Researcher and teacher
For changing the face of American health care in this half-century

Sam Shapiro, professor emeritus of health policy and management in the School of Public Health, began studying infant mortality in the 1940s, a time when there was no field of research that investigated the relationship between health care systems and patient outcomes.
   The research methodologies he developed, which came to fruition in his landmark work on mammography, have become the foundation for an entire research discipline. American health policy-makers and the health care industry have come to rely on the research he pioneered. The breast cancer study produced recommendations for routine mammography that have helped thousands of women survive breast cancer.
   At 84, he continues to conduct an astonishing range of research, which continually reveals new ways to organize services so that those who need care receive it.

Leon Schlossberg
Medical illustrator
For using art to reveal the body's truths and to guide the healer's hands

Considered for more than two decades the greatest living medical illustrator, Leon Schlossberg is chief medical illustrator for the Department of Surgery at Johns Hopkins, conveying pioneering techniques from the university's operating rooms to surgeons throughout the world.
   He received his training in the Hopkins Department of Art as Applied to Medicine, studying under Max Bridel, who brought the field to the United States early in this century.
   But for a brief stint in the Navy during World War II, he has been serving faculty and students ever since. His love of anatomy has produced the exquisite Atlas of Functional Anatomy. First published in 1975, the atlas reached its fourth edition last year and exists in 11 languages.

Rita Sussmuth
President of the Federal German Parliament
For exemplifying the tradition of the engaged scholar

From her position as a professor of education at the University of Dortmund and director of the Research Institute on Women and Society in Hannover, Rita Sussmuth was called by her political party to become minister for family, youth and health, and later to become president of the Federal German Parliament.
   She has advanced controversial positions so ardently that she has persuaded not only her own party but opposing parties as well to act on issues of social justice. She has argued for politically unpopular views, defending the law of asylum, urging acknowledgment of the Oder-Niesse River as the border between Poland and Germany and questioning a chosen leader of her own party due to his past association with National Socialism. She has advanced women's issues, making it easier for women to raise families while maintaining economic independence.

About the Graduates

The total number of earned degrees, certificates and diplomas awarded to full-time and part-time graduates is expected to be 4,865, as of May 1, 1998: