Ricardo Lagos
Current position: President of Chile
Background: He earned a Ph.D. from Duke in economics in 1966 and went into exile from Chile after the 1973 military coup. In 1980, he returned to Chile and headed an opposition group. In 2000, he was elected to a six-year term as president.
Quote: "The truth is, I'm a little timid," he said when asked about his political activity.
Miscellaneous fact: Shortly after he returned to Chile, he made a bold television appearance when he attacked the Chilean military ruler Augusto Pinochet. At a time when Pinochet still held power, Lagos accused the ruler of being responsible for "years of torture, murder and human rights violations." In 1986, he was arrested and held without charge for three weeks by the Pinochet government.
On Lagos: "This is a man, like so many other Latin American presidents, who is an intellectual, which will be a pleasant surprise to Americans," said Duke Professor Ariel Dorfman, a native Chilean. "He likes books, writes books and cares about culture. He doesn't posture about his bravery, but he is brave in his actions. He was the first person under the Pinochet dictatorship to challenge the general on television, to call him out for the years of disappearances and abuse and to call for his resignation. It was a brave thing for him to do, and later he was jailed. So he is a person who has the courage of his convictions and he acts upon them."
John H. Adams
Current position: Founding director of the National Resources Defense Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting natural resources and improving the quality of the environment. He will step down from the position in 2006.
Background: A 1962 graduate of the Duke School of Law, he is a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He taught clinical environmental law at New YorkUniversity's School of Law for 26 years. Among his many honors, he is the winner of National Audubon's 100 Champions of Conservation award, Duke's Distinguished Alumni Award and Duke law school's Charles J. Murphy Award.
Quote: "Our leaders must simply find the vision and the responsibility to face the environmental challenges of the 21st century. The first generation of environmental law has been a tremendous success, but the work is just beginning. Growing energy demand while our climate is jeopardized, over-fishing of our oceans and the stew of untested chemicals all around us add to the challenge. It is a challenge we can meet, but only if politicians and businesspeople step up to the plate."
Miscellaneous fact: Adams helped start the Open Space Initiative, which he serves as board chairman. The group has bought up some 90,000 acres in New York state to preserve it as open, wild and protected land.
On Adams: "John built NRDC with patience, generosity, respect and good judgment," said Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. "The NRDC is now what many believe is our nation's strongest defender of the environment. No one else could have done it. He is a very special person who accomplished a very special thing."
Roald Hoffman
Current position: Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at CornellUniversity
Background: A native of Poland, he and his mother were smuggled out of German-occupied Poland in 1943 and were hidden in a schoolhouse attic by a Ukrainian. His father remained behind in a labor camp and was killed in 1943. He came to Brooklyn in 1949. He has taught at Cornell since 1965, focusing on the study of the electronic structure of stable and unstable molecules and of transition states in reactions. In 1981, he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Kenichi Fukui of Japan for their independently developed theories of the course of chemical reactions.
Quote: "It seems obvious to me to use words as best as I can in teaching myself and my coworkers. Some call that research. Or to instruct others in what I've learned myself, in ever-widening circles of audience. Some call that teaching. The words are important in science, as much as we might deny it, as much as we might claim that they just represent some underlying material reality."
Miscellaneous fact: He is an author of four collections of poetry and several plays, including the 2001 play "Oxygen," (with Carl Djerassi) which is about the discovery of oxygen, what it means to be a scientist and the importance of the discovery process in science. It has been performed across the world.
On Hoffman: "Roald Hoffman is a modern Renaissance Man," said Robert Richardson, a Cornell professor, Duke alumnus and Nobel Prize winner in physics. "He writes poetry and plays. He holds a monthly meeting in New York City with a group of people who are interested in the cultural intersection between the sciences and the arts. I am told that they are most enthusiastically attended. Roald has been a treasured colleague of mine since the early 1970's. He was always thoughtful, urbane and very collegial. In the classroom, he is famous for the quality and originality of his undergraduate lectures."
Freeman A. Hrabowski III
Current position: President of the University of Maryland at BaltimoreCounty
Background: His research and publications focus on science and mathematics education, with an emphasis on minority participation and performance. He is co-author of two books published by Oxford University Press: Beating the Odds (1998), focusing on parenting and high-achieving African American males in science, and Overcoming the Odds (2002), on successful African-American females in science.
Quote: "Our emphasis on supporting students reminds me that when my colleagues and I were college freshmen, it was not unusual to hear the convocation speaker say, 'Look to your left; look to your right; one of you will not graduate.' Rather, we say, 'Look to your left; look to your right; our goal is to make sure that all of you graduate.'"
Miscellaneous fact: Instead of attempting to raise UMBC's profile through athletics, Hrabowski has instead helped turn UMBC into a chess powerhouse. UMBC has won the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championships six out of seven years.
On Hrabowski: "Freeman's roots date back to the Civil Rights era in the deep South and the impact of the segregation that he personally endured has made a lasting impression on the person he has become and has informed his unrelenting pursuit of excellence, especially for African-Americans and other disadvantaged people," said Dr. Brenda Armstrong, associate professor of pediatrics and associate dean for medical education. "He articulates the potential for and expectation of every child for excellence if given access to appropriate resources. He is their fearless champion and gives voice and passion to these issues as critical to our country's commitment (or lack thereof) to educating all of its citizenry."
Mary Robinson
Current position: director of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative
Background: In 1969 she became the youngest Reid Professor of Constitutional Law at TrinityCollege, Dublin. After serving as a senator in Ireland for 20 years, she was elected president of the country in 1990, becoming the country's first female head of state. She served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002.
Quote: "To bring about a truly secure world, we must adopt a new paradigm that shifts priority to the security of individuals and of communities ” that is, to achieving human security. Strategies that rely solely on force may 'shock and awe' but they do little to 'support and assist.'"
Miscellaneous fact: She was the youngest person ever appointed as the prestigious Reid Professor of Constitutional Law at Dublin's TrinityCollege.
On Robinson: "She is a heroine of the contemporary human rights movement and an extraordinary combination of statesperson, activist and legal scholar," said Elizabeth Kiss, director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics. "She has demonstrated a willingness to champion unpopular causes, from contraception and the rights of gays and lesbians in her native Ireland to the inseparability of economic and social from civil and political rights during her tenure as U.N. commissioner. She has also been willing to stand up to powerful governments, condemning Russian atrocities in Chechnya and the treatment of United States prisoners in GuantanamoBay."