Graduate School dean calls for honorary-degree nominations

Rathindra Bose, NIU vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School, is issuing a call for nominations for honorary doctoral degrees to be awarded from the university.

“Awarding an honorary degree is an opportunity for the university to recognize someone especially outstanding in a field of interest to the university,” Bose said.

An honorary-degree recipient should be clearly exceptional among other outstanding persons in his or her field. While a connection to NIU or the State of Illinois is not a requirement for nomination, any such relationship will be considered during the selection process.

A nomination must be accompanied by:

• A supporting narrative that indicates the nominee’s distinction in business, education, the liberal arts and sciences, technology, the fine arts, other professional fields or public service.
• One or more standard biographical statements from appropriate reference sources.
• The current mailing address of the nominee.

Any person affiliated with NIU may submit a nomination.

The Honorary Degree Committee encourages nominations by groups as well as by individuals. Nominators should alert all university departments and divisions related to the area of the nominee’s accomplishments and invite those units to provide the committee with input regarding the merits of the nomination.

This year’s nominations, with the required supporting information, should be submitted to Bose by Friday, Dec. 8.

Past recipients of NIU honorary degrees have included Hermann A. Grunder, director emeritus of Argonne National Laboratory; J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; distinguished historian and Pulitzer Prize-winner Arthur Schlesinger Jr.; astronomer Carl Sagan; and Leon Lederman, former Fermilab director and winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in physics.

10-30-06