Honorary Degrees

Duke University will award honorary degrees during May 14 commencement exercises to Elizabeth Dole, the first woman to head two federal cabinet agencies, and to civil rights leader and former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young Jr. Commencement, featuring an address by Dole, will be held at 10 a.m. at Wallace Wade Stadium. Dole, a Duke alumna and former university trustee, was a candidate for president last year but announced in October that she was withdrawing from the Republican presidential race because of the difficulty in raising money. She is the past president of the American Red Cross and former White House aide who has worked with five U.S. presidents. She spent five years as a member of the Federal Trade Commission and served two years as an assistant to President Reagan. In 1983, she joined Reagan's cabinet as secretary of transportation -- the first woman to hold that position. She also served as secretary of labor in the administration of George Bush. Dole, who will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters, had been invited to deliver the 1997 commencement address but she was forced to withdraw because of a scheduling conflict in her duties as president of the American Red Cross. Instead, she spoke to the senior class that April in a standing room-only event. A native of Salisbury, Dole came to Duke as a student in 1954, during a time when women and men lived on separate campuses. A short time later, she began moving into leadership positions within women's student government. Dole graduated with distinction as a member of Phi Beta Kappa from Duke in 1958. She received her law degree from Harvard Law School and also holds a master's degree in education and government from Harvard. Young has spent more than 40 years in public service. An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, he was an early adviser and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and served as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Young was elected to Congress in 1972, becoming the first black representative from Georgia since Reconstruction. He served three terms in the House. In 1977, President Carter named him U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Young also was elected to two terms as mayor of Atlanta during the 1980s, and in 1990 he co-chaired the Atlanta Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. In 1995, President Clinton appointed him to chair the new Southern African Enterprise Development Fund, which was founded to establish small- and medium-sized businesses throughout South Africa. Young, who will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters, is a 1951 graduate of Howard University as well as a graduate of Hartford Theological Seminary. Among his many honors are the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Legion d'Honneur from France.