Eleven Honorary Doctorates Are to Be Handed Out Today

At today's commencement ceremony, Harvard University will award 11 honorary degrees.

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, designer of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Maya Ying Lin and medical researcher and humanitarian Harold Amos are three of this year's honorands.

Degrees will also be bestowed upon philanthropist and diplomat Walter H. Annenberg, presidential policy advisor William T. Coleman Jr., social and feminist historian Natalie Zemon Davis, French historian Francois Furet, dancer Judith A. Jamison, philanthropist Oseola McCarty, physicist Charles P. Slichter '45 and National Institutes of Health director Harold E. Varmus.

The 11 honorands were entertained at an invitation-only dinner at Annenberg Hall last night.

Chinua Achebe

Born in East Nigeria in 1930, Achebe's first novel, Things Fall Apart, has sold more then 8 million copies. He has authored or edited more than 18 books.

His writing has earned him Nigeria's highest prize for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Order of Merit. He will be given a Doctorate of Letters today.

Harold Amos

In 1995, Amos's work mentoring minority students and scientists in medicine and research earned him the National Academy of Science highest award, the Public Welfare Medal.

For 35 years, Amos was the Presley Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School. A distinguished scholar of microbiology, Amos did important research in sugar metabolism.

Amos has been committed to volunteer work since 1967 when he began work with the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.

He will be given a Doctorate of Science today.

Walter H. Annenberg

Annenberg's donations to Harvard are reflected in the first-year dining hall named in his family's honor.

Annenberg is chair and president of the Annenberg Foundation. He has served as president, chair and CEO of Triangle Publications, as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and Northern Ireland and as founder of a number of educational programs in commerce.

Annenberg graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He will receive an LL.D.

William T. Coleman Jr.

Coleman was the first African-American to serve as a clerk on the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also one of the authors of the legal briefs contributing to the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Coleman is a chair of the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

He was the recipient of a 1995 Presidential Medal of Freedom and is a former member of Harvard's Board of Overseers. He will receive an LL.D.

Natalie Zemon Davis

Davis, who served as president of the American Historical Association, has been a history professor at Princeton since 1978. She received an M.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She currently serves on Princeton's Committee on Renaissance Studies.

Davis, who specializes in feminist social history, is the author Women in the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. She collaborated on the 1983 French film "The Return of Martin Guerre." Today, she will get an LL.D.

Francois Furet

Furet, a well-known French Revolution scholar who teaches at the University of Chicago, will receive an honorary LL.D. degree today.

Furet directed the prestigious Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales from 1977-85. A professor at the University of Chicago, Furet received the Grand Prix de la Bibliotheque Nationale in 1989, as well as the 1995 Chateaubriand Prize.

Judith A. Jamison

Jamison became the artistic director of the nationally acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater after the death of Alvin Ailey in 1989. She is also artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.

Jamison has danced with American Ballet Theatre, Harkness Ballet, the Vienna, Munich and Hamburg state opera ballets and Alvin Ailey. Jamison will receive a Doctorate of Arts today.

Maya Ying Lin

Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington D.C., which she submitted as an undergraduate at Yale University.

Lin has also designed the 1993 Museum of African Art in New York City, the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. and Eclipsed Time in New York's Pennsylvania Station.

Lin was born in Athens, Ohio in 1959, 10 years after her parents fled the reign of Mao Zedong in China. She will be given a Doctorate of Arts.

Oseola McCarty

McCarty, a native of Wayne County, Miss., dropped out of school in the sixth grade and never married, never had children and never learned to drive.

But after working as a laundress for 75 years, she donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi for scholarships for black students.

McCarty has already been President Clinton's guest at the White House and the guest of honor at a dinner held by the Congressional Black Caucus. She will receive a Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Charles P. Slichter '45

Slichter, who is employed at the Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Illinois, was a Fellow of the College from 1969 to 1995 and the only science professor on the Harvard Corporation.

Slichter earned his A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard and will add an honorary LL.D to that today.

Harold E. Varmus

Dr. Varmus, who is today's commencement speaker, is internationally recognized for his research on retroviruses and the genetic basis of cancer.

He received the Nobel Prize in 1989 for demonstrating that cancer genes can arise from normal cells.

Currently, Varmus is the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

He received a masters in English from Harvard in 1962 and earned his M.D. from Columbia University. Presently, he is focusing on research for breast cancer and AIDS virus prevention. He will receive a doctorate of science.

--Colleen T. Gaard, Matthew W. Granade, Justin D. Lerer, Malka A. Older, Olivia E. Ralston and Chana R. Schoenberger contributed to this report.

Annenberg graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He will receive an LL.D.

William T. Coleman Jr.

Coleman was the first African-American to serve as a clerk on the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also one of the authors of the legal briefs contributing to the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Coleman is a chair of the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

He was the recipient of a 1995 Presidential Medal of Freedom and is a former member of Harvard's Board of Overseers. He will receive an LL.D.

Natalie Zemon Davis

Davis, who served as president of the American Historical Association, has been a history professor at Princeton since 1978. She received an M.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She currently serves on Princeton's Committee on Renaissance Studies.

Davis, who specializes in feminist social history, is the author Women in the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. She collaborated on the 1983 French film "The Return of Martin Guerre." Today, she will get an LL.D.

Francois Furet

Furet, a well-known French Revolution scholar who teaches at the University of Chicago, will receive an honorary LL.D. degree today.

Furet directed the prestigious Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales from 1977-85. A professor at the University of Chicago, Furet received the Grand Prix de la Bibliotheque Nationale in 1989, as well as the 1995 Chateaubriand Prize.

Judith A. Jamison

Jamison became the artistic director of the nationally acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater after the death of Alvin Ailey in 1989. She is also artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.

Jamison has danced with American Ballet Theatre, Harkness Ballet, the Vienna, Munich and Hamburg state opera ballets and Alvin Ailey. Jamison will receive a Doctorate of Arts today.

Maya Ying Lin

Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington D.C., which she submitted as an undergraduate at Yale University.

Lin has also designed the 1993 Museum of African Art in New York City, the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. and Eclipsed Time in New York's Pennsylvania Station.

Lin was born in Athens, Ohio in 1959, 10 years after her parents fled the reign of Mao Zedong in China. She will be given a Doctorate of Arts.

Oseola McCarty

McCarty, a native of Wayne County, Miss., dropped out of school in the sixth grade and never married, never had children and never learned to drive.

But after working as a laundress for 75 years, she donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi for scholarships for black students.

McCarty has already been President Clinton's guest at the White House and the guest of honor at a dinner held by the Congressional Black Caucus. She will receive a Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Charles P. Slichter '45

Slichter, who is employed at the Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Illinois, was a Fellow of the College from 1969 to 1995 and the only science professor on the Harvard Corporation.

Slichter earned his A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard and will add an honorary LL.D to that today.

Harold E. Varmus

Dr. Varmus, who is today's commencement speaker, is internationally recognized for his research on retroviruses and the genetic basis of cancer.

He received the Nobel Prize in 1989 for demonstrating that cancer genes can arise from normal cells.

Currently, Varmus is the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

He received a masters in English from Harvard in 1962 and earned his M.D. from Columbia University. Presently, he is focusing on research for breast cancer and AIDS virus prevention. He will receive a doctorate of science.

--Colleen T. Gaard, Matthew W. Granade, Justin D. Lerer, Malka A. Older, Olivia E. Ralston and Chana R. Schoenberger contributed to this report.