Nominations for honorary degrees announced

The University of Cambridge has announced the names of eight eminent individuals to be submitted to the Regent House for the conferment of honorary degrees in June 2010.

The eight were nominated for their outstanding contributions to their fields, ranging from conflict negotiation to percussive composition.

George John Mitchell, the United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace for the Obama administration, was nominated for an honorary degree of Doctor of Law. Having previously served as a US Senator, he is most noted for his services to the Northern Ireland peace process and leading the Mitchell Report into the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He was nominated alongside Ratan Naval Tata, chairman of the Tata group of companies. The Tata Group has strong ties with the university, including a social entrepreneurship internship scheme in India for university graduates. Tata Steel has also endowed the position of Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy at the university since 2008.

The other nominees were Sir Andrew John Wiles and Dame Louise Napier Johnson for Doctors of Science, Geoffrey William Hill and Richard Sennett for Doctors of Letters and Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie for Doctors of Music.

Dame Louise Napier Johnson said that she was “greatly honoured and also humbled by the honorary degree to be conferred by the University of Cambridge. It gives me and my family much pleasure and I hope it will strengthen ties between Cambridge and Oxford as both Universities seek to maintain the joy in teaching and research in future years.”

According to the university’s statutes, honorary degrees are awarded to “British subjects who are of conspicuous merit or have done good service to the State or to the University, and foreigners of distinction.”

A spokesperson from the university said that an honorary degree is the highest accolade that can be bestowed by the university. The university has been conferring honorary degrees for some 500 years. Many famous figures have been honoured during this time for their contributions to fields such as world leadership, business, religion, science and the arts, including Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates and David Attenborough.

It is expected that the degrees will be presented by the Chancellor Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, at a “scarlet day” ceremony to be held at Senate House on Monday 21 June.

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