This year's Commence-ment speaker will be Henry Louis Gates Jr., W.E.B. DuBois Professor of the Humanities and chair of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University. Gates is not a newcomer to the Emory campus; in an address on campus last March titled "Blacks and Jews: Common Sense and Common Ground," he called on members of the audience to repudiate bigotry, regardless of its source.
Gates is considered one of America's most dynamic intellectuals. He has had a broad impact through his critical studies of African-American oral and literary traditions. His books include The Signifying Monkey (a 1989 American Book Award winner), and Colored People: A Memoir, about growing up in a small West Virginia town in the 1950s and 1960s. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation and The Times Literary Supplement. He has been the recipient of honors and grants throughout his career, including a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 1981--at the age of 30.
Gates will be honored by the University with an honorary doctor of letters degree. Six additional recipients known for accomplishments that range from civil rights activism to philanthropy, also will receive honorary degrees.
Baseball and Civil Rights Hero, Doctor of Laws
Last spring the Atlanta Braves celebrated the 20th anniversary of Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run with a ceremony at the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and a billboard message that read simply, "Thanks, Hank." Demonstrating persistence and perseverance, he hit 755 home runs over 23 seasons.
Hank Aaron broke racial barriers in baseball in the South. In 1953, Aaron withstood countless racial slurs and epithets to win the South Atlantic League's Most Valuable Player award. From 1954 through 1974, jeers and gibes, threats to his life and to his family, and blatant disregard of his achievements tormented him, but he responded with courage and dignity.
Medical Scientist and Educator, Doctor of Science
Vice president and chief scientific officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1988, W. Maxwell Cowan leads and directs private sector medical research programs throughout the country to promote knowledge of the basic sciences and their effective application. In addition, the institute has forged partnerships with many medical institutions to improve scientific literacy and the quality of science at all levels. Emory's biology education program is supported by funding from the institute, and biochemistry professor Stephen Warren has been designated a Howard Hughes Associate Investigator. Much of the scientific success of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is credited to Cowan's vision and foresight.
Mathematician, Doctor of Science
One of the most prominent mathematicians of this century, Paul Erdos has directed the development of several new and important research areas in mathematics through his innovative work and unique ability to pose fundamental problems. Erdos is the father of probablistic combinatorics, an active area of combinatorics that applies probability to combinatorics and number theory, opening several new and significant research areas. Among his most famous results is his elementary proof of the Prime Number Theorem. Overall he is unquestionably the most prolific living research mathematician in the world, having published more than 1,300 articles in international mathematical journals and many books.
Teacher and Humanist, Doctor of Letters
Alex Gross teaches students more about life than about the specific history of the Holocaust, for his story is incredible, and surviving the Holocaust is only the beginning. Taken from his home in Hungary during the last years of World War II, he was confined in several ghettoes, labored at Auschwitz, then was force-marched and taken in an open boxcar to Buchenwald, where he was eventually liberated. He came to the United States, began a career as a builder, and insisted on serving in the Armed Forces in Korea, where he received his high school diploma equivalency. After discharge, he continued his career, married and had a family. At age 14, his son was killed in a freak vehicular accident. Later, when his wife was working as a real estate agent, she was raped and murdered.
Gross became the first and foremost of the Holocaust survivors in Atlanta to tell his story. He has been a staunch supporter of such endeavors as Emory's Witness to the Holocaust Project, the Danzig Exhibit and the Auschwitz Exhibit, University efforts that became watershed cultural events in the history of Emory and of Atlanta.
Journalist, Author and Mentor, Doctor of Letters
For 65 years, Max Hall has distinguished himself as a journalist, writer and editor from Atlanta to New York, from Washington to Harvard. In addition, he has guided the work of a number of outstanding scholars through publication. Several of his writers, who include historians, political scientists and sociologists, have won the Pulitzer Prizes under his direction.
A 1932 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Emory, Hall worked for The Atlanta Constitution while attending the University, then taught English at Druid Hills High School for a year. He held a variety of positions at newspapers in Atlanta, New York and Washington, then worked for the federal government before taking up editorial duties in New York and at Harvard University. He became the first social science editor for the Center for International Affairs at Harvard. From 1973 to 1977 Hall advised faculty at the Harvard Business School on writing books, and he remains a member of the Harvard Magazine Board of Directors.
Philanthropist, Doctor of Humane Letters
A dedicated humanitarian, Grace Crum Rollins is a woman of remarkable devotion, kindness, modesty and spirit. Together with her late husband, O. Wayne Rollins, she has supported Emory in a variety of ways as one of the University's most generous benefactors.
The Rollins' resources helped fund the renovation of the chapel at the Candler School of Theology, the work of the North Georgia Teaching Parish and the O. Wayne Rollins Fellowships in Church Ministries. Their lead gift of $10 million made possible the establishment of the O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, Emory's contribution to the Georgia Research Consortium, which houses researchers from the science departments of the School of Medicine, Emory College and the Graduate School. Mrs. Rollins has given consistently to urology research in the School of Medicine and funded the construction of the Grace Crum Rollins Building, which houses the Rollins School of Public Health.