Emory Report

April 10, 2000

Volume 52, No. 28

Honorary Degree Recipients The Office of the University Secretary announced last week the names of the following six individuals who will receive honorary degrees from Emory at Commencement on May 15. The office coordinates with the University Senate's honorary degree committee to solicit and evaluate nominations for recipients. The nominees are approved by the president and the Board of Trustees. Linda H. Aiken will receive a Doctor of Science degree. She has spent her more than 30-year career advocating for improved health care access for vulnerable populations. She received a Joint Secretarial Commendation from the secretaries of Housing and Urban Develop-ment and Health and Human Services for a large-scale demonstration model she oversaw that addressed the problems of the homeless mentally ill. For the past two years, Aiken has served as a visiting professor at Emory's nursing school, helping develop its recently approved doctoral program. Leila Daughtry Denmark will receive a Doctor of Science degree. She was born Feb. 1, 1898 on a farm near Statesboro, Ga. She graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 1928--the third woman to do so. She and her husband moved to Atlanta that year, and she became the first intern at the newly opened Egleston Hospital. Her research on whooping cough in the early 1930s led to the development of the pertussis vaccine and the modern-day DPT vaccination. She practiced in her home in the Virginia-Highland area and saw patients at the Central Presbyterian charity baby clinic for more than 50 years. She now lives in Sandy Springs, where she has practiced for 36 years, and sees patients four days a week in a 125-year-old renovated farmhouse. She is the oldest practicing physician in the United States. Claus Halle will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. A native of Germany, Halle and his wife Marianne are the benefactors of the Halle Institute for Global Learning. The institute has strongly contributed to the University's growing reputation as an international institution. Halle moved to the United States in 1972 as an executive with the Coca-Cola Company. He retired in 1989 as senior executive vice president and head of Coca-Cola International. George Mitchell will receive a Doctor of Laws degree. Mitchell, who will deliver this year's Commencement speech, had a long and successful career as a U.S. senator from Maine--first serving in 1980. He led the 1990 reauthorization of the Clean Air Act and authored the first national oil spill and cleanup law. He also led the Senate in passing the nation's first child care bill. Mitchell recently served as chairman of the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland. Under his leadership an historic accord was reached by the parties disputing control of Northern Ireland, and the agreement was overwhelmingly endorsed by the voters of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Rex Nettleford will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Born in a rural town in Jamaica, Nettelford attended Cornwall College in Montego Bay, the University College of the West Indies (London University) and, as a Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University. Nettleford is a founder, the artistic director and principal coreographer of the internationally renowned National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, which has been in operation since 1962. Anna J. Schwartz will receive a Doctor of Letters degree. One of the nation's preeminent economists, Schwartz continues to write important papers and participate in conferences at the age of 80. She co-authored three landmark books with Milton Friedman: A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1870; Monetary Statistics of the United States; and Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom: Their Relation to Income, Prices, and Interest Rates, 1867-1875. These books provided the basis for a marked change in the study of economics, which now views changes in the money supply as the primary cause of changes in general economic conditions. -Peter Mills Return to April 10, 2000 contents page