Honorary degrees

The following honorary degree was conferred on 12 June, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton, presiding:

Doctor of Letters

Henry Reece

Former Chief Executive of Oxford University Press and Secretary to the Delegates

‘Outstanding publisher, whose labours have brought us great benefits …’

Dr Reece took his undergraduate degree at Bristol University, going on to study for a DPhil in Modern History at St John’s College, Oxford. He taught briefly at Exeter University before joining Prentice Hall in 1979, then Simon & Schuster (which acquired Prentice Hall in the mid-1980s). Dr Reece moved to Pearson in 1991, taking directorial roles at Pitman Publishing, then Longman Group. In 1995 he became Executive Director of Pearson Professional. He joined Oxford University Press (OUP) as Chief Executive in 1998. During his 11 years of leadership, OUP saw tremendous growth, consolidating its position as the largest university press in the world.The period saw substantial investment in the Oxford English Dictionary, the completion of the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the successful launch of a range of new online initiatives spearheaded by Oxford Scholarship Online and an expansion of OUP’s global reach. Dr Reece is an emeritus fellow of Jesus College and an honorary fellow of St John’s College.

The following honorary degrees were conferred at Encaenia on 23 June, the Chancellor, the Rt Hon Lord Patten of Barnes, presiding.

Doctor of Civil Law

Justice Stephen Breyer, AB

Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court

‘A profoundly judicious interpreter of the law …’

Justice Breyer, administrative lawyer and academic, has served as Clerk to Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg of the US Supreme Court; Special Assistant to the Assistant US Attorney General for Antitrust; Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force; and Special Counsel and subsequently Chief Counsel of the US Senate Judiciary Committee. In 1994 he was appointed an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton. A former Professor at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, his publications include Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution; Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation and Regulation and its Reform. His most recent book, Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View, was published in September 2010. He is an honorary fellow of Magdalen College, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) as a Marshall Scholar.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville, MBA, Hon FRS

Former Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry (Minister for Science and Innovation)

‘A man equally adept in business and in statecraft …’

Lord Sainsbury read history and psy-chology at King’s College, Cambridge and has an MBA from Columbia Business School. He joined J Sainsbury plc in 1963 and became, successively, Finance Director, Deputy Chairman and Chairman. He took his seat in the House of Lords in 1997 and the following year was appointed Minister of Science and Innovation in the Department of Trade and Industry, a position he held until 2006. Among his achievements in post were an increase in the funding of basic science; a major boost for knowledge transfer through the establishment of the University Challenge, Science Enterprise Centre and Higher Education Innovation schemes; and a new emphasis on research and development across government, including the introduction of science and innovation strategies and chief scientific advisers in all major government departments. He is an honorary fellow of Nuffield College.

Doctor of Letters

Dame Eileen Atkins, DBE

Actor

‘Light and glory of the English stage …’

Dame Eileen Atkins is one of the UK’s leading actors who is known both for her work in the theatre and for roles on the small screen and in film. Her many theatre honours include the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance in Ionesco’s Exit the King and two Olivier Awards for her performances in Mountain Language and in The Unexpected Man. She has frequently performed on Broadway, her greatest success being the adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Her television credits include the BBC costume drama Cranford (for which she won a Bafta and an Emmy in 2008), Sons and Lovers and The Duchess of Malfi; her films include The Hours and Gosford Park. Dame Eileen is also a writer, and was the co-creator of the popular television series Upstairs, Downstairs and The House of Eliott. She has adapted Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway for the screen and turned the letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf into a play, Vita and Virginia.

Professor Geoffrey Hill, FRSL, FAAAS

Poet and critic

‘Searcher of the depths, who sees what others have not seen ...’

Professor Hill read English at Keble College, where he is now an honorary fellow. While still an undergraduate, he published his first collection of poems. Other poems were published during his time at Oxford in Isis, The Oxford Guardian and Poetry Oxford. He has had a distinguished academic career in teaching and as a critic, and is University Professor Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Literature and Religion at Boston University, Massachusetts, and former Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds. While at Boston he was, with Christopher Ricks, a founding co-director of the University’s Editorial Institute. His work is the subject of study in its own right, and has been the subject of numerous doctoral dissertations. Professor Hill’s awards include the Hawthornden Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Whitbread Award for Poetry and the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize. In June he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, a post he took up in October 2010.

Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, FBA, FRHS

Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Sheffield

‘A great master of both medieval and modern history …’

Sir Ian Kershaw is widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on Nazi Germany. He was an undergraduate at the University of Liverpool and a doctoral student at Merton College, Oxford, of which he is now an honorary fellow. He began his career as a lecturer first in medieval, then in modern, history at the University of Manchester. In 1987 he was appointed to a Chair at the University of Nottingham before moving two years later to the University of Sheffield, where he was Professor of Modern History until his retirement in 2008. His publications include Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria, 1933–1945; The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich; and The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, his classic study of the historiography of the Third Reich. His two-volume biography of Hitler, Hubris and Nemesis, redefined the study of the dictator and became an international best-seller.

Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea

Co-founder and Chairman of the publishing firm Weidenfeld & Nicholson

‘Skilful publisher, who has brought pleasure to countless readers …’

Lord Weidenfeld attended the University and the Diplomatic College of Vienna. He moved to England in 1938, becoming a British citizen in 1946. In 1948 he co-founded the publishing firm Weidenfeld & Nicolson. In 1949 he spent a year in Israel as Political Advisor and Chef de Cabinet to President Chaim Weizmann. He is a campaigner for open dialogue across Europe, both through the Europaeum, an association of ten leading European university institutions, including Oxford, and the independent think-tank, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, of which he is President. In 2007 the Institute and Oxford launched the Weidenfeld Scholarships, which each year support around 25 postgraduate students primarily from Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Lord Weidenfeld is the recipient of numerous European honours and was awarded a peerage in 1976. He is an honorary fellow of St Anne's and of St Peter's Colleges.

Doctor of Science

Professor Brigitte Askonas, FRS

Immunologist

‘A medical scientist of masterly achievement…’

Professor Askonas is a Canadian immunologist celebrated for her work on understanding the molecular basis of lymphocyte-mediated immune responses to proteins and to infectious agents. She worked at the National Institute for Medical Research from 1952 to 1989, latterly as Head of the Division of Immunology, and continues, in her retirement, to advise scientists at all levels, particularly young researchers, and to take an interest in the development of immunology research in the UK. She has had a profoundly positive influence on immunology at Oxford and actively supports the work of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. She has twice served on the Royal Society’s Council and was a vice-president of the Society from 1989 to 1990. She is a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences; an Honorary Member of the American Society of Immunology, of the Société Française d’Immunologie and of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immunologie; and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Roald Hoffmann, FAAAS, FAPS, FNAS

Frank H T Rhodes Professor Emeritus of Humane Letters, Cornell University

‘Most wise master, who has explained chemistry to the layman and given new understanding of it to the experts …’

Professor Hoffmann was born in Zloczow, then Poland, now in Ukraine. After surviving the Nazi occupation, he left Poland with his family, arriving in the United States in 1949. After graduating from Columbia University with an MA in physics, he read for a doctorate in chemical physics at Harvard University. In 1965 he went to Cornell University, where he is now Frank H T Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus. His research, with Robert B Woodward, on symmetry rules for chemical reactions, led to the development of the ‘Woodward Hoffmann Rules’, which are accepted as the underpinning theoretical basis of an enormous body of knowledge dealing with organic reaction mechanisms and the structure of molecules. In 1981 he was awarded, jointly with Kenichi Fukui, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and his achievements have also been recognised by the award of the National Medal of Science, the National Academy of Sciences Award in the Chemical Sciences, and the Joseph Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society. He is also a writer, poet and broadcaster.