Duke Names Honorary Degree Recipients

Duke University will award four honorary degrees during its May 13 commencement ceremony, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Monday.

The recipients will be computer scientist Anita Jones; South African church leader Peter Storey; Tony Award-winning dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp; and Florence Wald, founder of the American hospice movement.

Commencement will feature an address by the General Motors Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr., a Duke graduate who is now a member of the university's board of trustees. Because he is a Duke trustee, Wagoner is ineligible to receive an honorary degree.

The May 13 ceremony, which will be held in Wallace Wade Stadium and is open to the public, begins at 10 a.m.; the procession begins at 9:30 a.m.

"Honorary degrees are conferred to recognize extraordinary achievement and to give graduating students inspiring examples of what others have done with their educations," Brodhead said. "Each of those we honor was once upon a time starting out his or her own career, full of hope and promise. Having these accomplished individuals with us at commencement gives our students wonderful images of how they might put their own learning to use in the future."

Jones is a professor at the University of Virginia's Department of Computer Science. From 1993-97, she served the U.S. government as director of defense research and engineering. She managed the science and technology program for the U.S. Department of Defense and oversaw the department's many research laboratories and the Advanced Research Projects Agency.

In 1997, Jones returned to the University of Virginia as a computer science professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. In 2002, she was a visiting lecturer in Duke's Department of Computer Science.

Jones is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the MIT Corporation, the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Corporation as well as several industrial boards. She has written two books about computer software and systems and won several awards, including the 2007 IEEE Founder's Medal, the Ada Lovelace Award from the Association of Women in Computing, the Computer Research Association's Service Award and the Department of Defense Award for Distinguished Public Service.

Before entering academia, Jones was vice president of Tartan Laboratories, a company she co-founded with her husband; the company was later sold to Texas Instruments.

Storey, a Christian minister and leader in his native South Africa, served as professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School from 1999 to 2006. He is former president of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, a former Methodist bishop for the Johannesburg/Soweto area and past president of the South African Council of Churches.

Storey was Nelson Mandela's prison chaplain when Mandela arrived on Robben Island in 1963, but was expelled from the island two years later after being deemed a "security risk." During the 30 years of apartheid, Storey's opposition was expressed through sermons, newspaper columns, and by church resistance campaigns and protest actions alongside Bishop Desmond Tutu. These actions brought frequent government harassment and several arrests. At the end of the apartheid era, Storey was appointed by Mandela to serve on the nominating committee for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

At Duke, Storey helped the Divinity School establish a partnership with the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and co-chaired the university-wide Concilium on Southern Africa.

Tharp founded Twyla Tharp Dance in 1965. After more than 20 years, her company merged with the American Ballet Theater, where she served as lead choreographer until 1991. In her career she has created more than 120 works and choreographed for numerous companies.

Her work encompasses classical music, jazz and contemporary pop music. In the early 1990s, Tharp created a program with Mikhail Baryshnikov for one of contemporary dance's most successful tours, "Cutting Up."

Since 1999, Tharp has toured internationally to critical acclaim. She's appeared on Broadway several times, collaborating with musicians David Byrne and Billy Joel, among others. Tharp won a Tony Award for "Movin' Out," which premiered on Broadway and also toured nationally. She was the choreographer for the films "Hair," "Ragtime," "Amadeus" and "White Nights."

Tharp has won three Emmy Awards and written two books: "Push Comes to Shove" and "The Creative Habit."

Tharp has received many other honors, including the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award and the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, and received numerous grants, including a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

From 1959 to 1968, Wald served as dean of the Yale School of Nursing, where she implemented numerous reforms in nursing education and helped define the field as a scholarly clinical discipline.

Inspired by the idea of compassionate care for the terminally ill, Wald resigned from her position as dean to devote her time and energy to founding the first hospice in the United States, Hospice Incorporated of Branford, Conn. It has served as a model for hospice care in the U.S., where there are more than 3,000 hospices now in operation, and abroad.

A world-renowned leader in nursing research, Wald was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 1996, the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2001, Wald was named a "living legend" by the American Academy of Nursing, a title bestowed only to pioneers and role models in the field of nursing.

Wald, who turns 90 on April 19, remains a leader in hospice by helping to bring hospice care to prison settings through her role on the Board of Advisors for the National Prison Hospice Association.