Aung San Suu Kyi to address honorary degree ceremony

Encaenia is the ceremony at which the University of Oxford awards honorary degrees to distinguished men and women and commemorates its benefactors. Honorands do not usually address the meeting.

Daw Suu will speak at the end of the ceremony, following the conferring of honorary degrees and the Creweian Oration, which recounts the events of the past year and commemorates the University's benefactors.

Daw Suu is expected to arrive in Oxford on the afternoon of Tuesday 19 June. She will be met at the Clarendon Building by the Chancellor of the University, Lord Patten of Barnes; the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton; and the Principal of St Hugh’s College, Mr Andrew Dilnot.

During her visit to Oxford, Daw Suu will also be presented with the Freedom of the City of Oxford by the Lord Mayor of Oxford, Councillor Alan Armitage. Oxford City Council granted Daw Suu the Freedom of the City in December 1997, an award accepted at the time on her behalf by her son.

The other honorands this year are Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, former Director General of the Security Service; David Cornwell (aka John le Carré), author; Professor Drew Faust, President and Lincoln Professor of History, Harvard University; Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman of Sony Corporation; Professor Charles Taylor, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, McGill University; Dr Henry Barnett, former President and Scientific Director of the Robarts Research Institute; and Professor William Phillips, physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute.

There will be a webcast of the ceremony on the University website.