Encaenia honorary degree ceremony 2008
18 Jun 08
Contributions to an eclectic mix of fields – from music, theatre and poetry to chemistry, neurobiology and aerospace research – have been recognised at the University’s annual Encaenia ceremony today.
Eight men and women have been awarded honorary degrees: economist Montek Singh Ahluwalia; poet, critic and translator Yves Bonnefoy; director Ariane Mnouchkine; philosopher Professor Thomas Nagel; cell physiologist Professor Bert Sakmann; aerospace researcher Professor Sheila Evans Widnall; chemist Professor Ada Yonath and musician Dame Emma Kirkby.
The procession of Honorands and senior members of the University, including the Chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes, and student representatives, started at Brasenose College before processing to the Sheldonian Theatre via Radcliffe Square, Catte Street and the Bodleian Library quadrangle.
Each Honorand was introduced, in Latin, by the Public Orator, Professor Richard Jenkyns, before being admitted to their degree by the Chancellor.
After the degrees were awarded the Public Orator then delivered the Creweian Oration in commemoration of benefactors to the University. The Chancellor closed the ceremony by dissolving congregation and the Honorands continued to a lunch held in their honour.
More details about the Honorands:
Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa:
Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, BA, MA, MPhil, economist, is Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Government of India. He has been extensively involved in India’s economics reforms as Commerce Secretary and in posts at the Ministry of Finance and Department of Economic Affairs. He was also the first Director of the Independent Evaluation Office at the International Monetary Fund.
Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa:
Mr Yves Bonnefoy is a French poet and writer. His first book of poems, Du Mouvement et de l’immobilité de Douve, published in 1953, quickly became a landmark in modern French poetry. He has written widely on other poets including Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Mallarmé, published acclaimed translations of Shakespeare’s plays and has produced monographs on the visual arts, including the Baroque period in Rome, Miró and, most recently, Goya.
Ms Ariane Mnouchine is a French stage and film director. In 1964 she founded the avant-garde theatre group Théâtre du Soleil, while in the 1980s she translated and directed a series of Shakespeare plays for the French stage. In 1978 she wrote and directed the film Molière for which she received an Academy Award nomination.
Professor Thomas Nagel, BA, BPhil, PhD, FBA is a Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law at the University of New York. He works in several areas of philosophy: ethics, political theory, philosophy of mind, theory of knowledge. He has also brought philosophy to bear on questions of general human interest and public policy and was one of the founders of the journal Philosophy & Public Affairs, which provided a forum for philosophical discussion of such questions.
Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa:
Professor Bert Sakmann, Staatsexamen, MD, German cell physiologist, he won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1991 with Erwin Neher for research into basic cell function and for their development of the 'patch-clamp technique', a laboratory method widely used in cell biology and neuroscience to detect electrical currents through cell membranes.
Professor Sheila Widnall, BSc, MSc, ScD, FRAES, FAAAS, FAIAA, FAPS was the first female Secretary of the United States Air Force from 1993 to 1997. She is a past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She is currently Institute Professor and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Professor Ada Yonath, BSc, MSc, born in Israel, established the first protein crystallography laboratory in Israel. She pioneered ribosomal crystallography in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, which led in 1986 to the introduction of cryo-bio-crystallography. She is Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology and the Director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelmann Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute.
Degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa:
Dame Emma Kirkby, OBE, MA, FGSM, FRCM, Hon FRAM, Hon FTCL was placed in the top ten greatest sopranos in a 2007 a survey of critics for BBC Music Magazine. She has appeared in several hundred recordings of all kinds, from madrigals of the Italian and English Renaissance to works in the twentieth century repertoire. In 1999 she was voted Artist of the Year by Classic FM Radio listeners; in 2000 she received the Order of the British Empire, and in 2007 was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.