Duke Names Honorary Degree Recipients

Duke University will award five honorary degrees during its May 11 commencement exercises, Duke President Richard H. Brodhead announced Thursday.

The degree recipients will be author Wendell Berry, public health leader Helene Gayle, broadcast executive James Goodmon, writer Barbara Kingsolver and judge Patricia Wald.

Commencement, featuring an address by Kingsolver, will be held at 10 a.m. at Wallace Wade Stadium and is open to the public. The academic procession begins at 9:30 a.m.

"Honorary degrees serve the dual purpose of recognizing extraordinary individuals and inspiring graduating students," Brodhead said. "Students about to embark on their own careers, full of hope and promise, see at commencement these wonderful examples of how they might put their own learning to use in the future."

Wendell Berry is an essayist, poet and novelist who has written more than 40 books. Much of his writing draws upon his experiences living in rural Kentucky. He is a native of Henry County, Ky., and was raised as a farmer. He earned a bachelor's and master's degree in English from the University of Kentucky and received prestigious fellowships and teaching positions, but decided in the mid-1960s to return to Kentucky. He has lived on a marginal hillside farm in Henry County ever since.

In his writing, Berry expresses his respect for the land, love of community and the stewardship of creation and his belief that industrialization poses a threat to the natural world.

Among his honors and awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, a Lannan Foundation Award and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Dr. Helene Gayle is CEO and president of CARE. She is the first woman and the first person of color to lead the international poverty-fighting organization.

She has devoted her career to combating health problems, particularly among women and children.

Gayle received her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and master's in public health from John Hopkins University. She worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 20 years in a variety of positions, including director for the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. Prior to joining CARE, she directed the HIV, TB and Reproductive Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gayle has received many awards for her scientific and public health contributions and was recently named one of the "women to watch" by the Wall Street Journal.

As the president and CEO of Capitol Broadcasting Co., James F. Goodmon has campaigned nationally against media consolidation to ensure that local voices are heard. He also has been a leading advocate for regionalism and redevelopment, leading Capitol's development of the acclaimed American Tobacco Historic District in downtown Durham.

His many philanthropic efforts have included leading the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, which supports a variety of nonprofit organizations in North Carolina, and establishing the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

His extensive volunteer activities include serving as the first president of the NC Partnership for Children's Smart Start Program. Honored as The News and Observer's 2003 "Tarheel of the Year," Goodmon also has received the North Carolina Award, the highest honor given to a citizen of the state. He attended Duke from 1961 to 1965, but left to enlist in the Navy before obtaining a degree.

Barbara Kingsolver is a novelist, essayist, poet, non-fiction and short-story writer whose work includes five novels, among them "The Poisonwood Bible" and "Animal Dreams." Her most recent book is "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life." It chronicles her family's commitment to eat only food produced by themselves and their neighbors in southwestern Virginia, and was written with her husband, Steven L. Hopp, and daughter Camille Kingsolver, a Duke junior.

Kingsolver grew up in Kentucky and graduated with a degree in biology from DePauw University. Her short fiction and poetry began to be published during the mid-1980s, and her first novel, "The Bean Trees," was published in 1987.

Her books have earned major literary awards at home and abroad, and in 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal.

Patricia Wald has devoted her career to public service. She currently is on the board of directors of the Open Society Justice Initiative, the American Constitution Society and the Council of the American Law Institute.

Among her other accomplishments, Wald served as the first woman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1999 and was chief judge from 1986 to 1991. She served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague. In 2004, President Bush appointed her to the Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent panel that investigated weapons of mass destruction and U.S. intelligence surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Wald earned a bachelor's degree from the Connecticut College for Women and a law degree from Yale University.