College to Bestow Five Honorary Degrees

Author: Ashley Elpern

As the graduation for the Class of 2002 approaches, Middlebury College has announced the final four honorary degree recipients who will receive degrees from the College at the May 26 graduation ceremony, along with graduation speaker and Doctor of Letters Dava Sobel. Sobel is the internationally renowned author of "Galileo's Daughter" and "Longitude." Former Fulbright scholar Ngawang Choephel, who taught at the College and gained local and national recognition while imprisoned for alleged espionage in China, will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters.

Houghton Freeman, chairman of the Freeman Foundation, an organization that works to strengthen bonds between the United States and the Far East, will receive the Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Another Doctor of Letters degree will be given to Victor Swenson, former executive director of the Vermont Council on the Humanities. The final Doctor of Letters will go to Roger Wilkins, currently a professor of history and American culture at George Mason University.

Dean of the Faculty Robert Schine, who serves as the administrative liaison to the Honorary Degree Committee, a group comprised of trustees, administrators, faculty and students, said that the committee "seeks to nominate individuals who in different ways exemplify the ideals that Middlebury College espouses." Schine continued that in most years, the committee likes to honor a citizen of Vermont with a record of distinguished service, only one of the many considerations for the nominees that are sent to the President of the College to finalize.

Perhaps the most notable of the honorary degree recipients is Choephel, who came to the College between 1993 and 1994 as a visiting scholar to study ethnomusicology. Choephel made many lasting friendships at Middlebury before traveling to Tibet to work on a documentary chronicling the region's traditional dance and music. He was arrested by Chinese authorities in September 1995.

Choephel's arrest for alleged espionage, as well as his sentence of 18 years, evoked a widespread call for his release at Middlebury College and across the nation. Middlebury's Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) mobilized to raise awareness about Choephel's plight. After six years of efforts on the part of national legislators, the U.S. government and student groups such as SFT, Choephel was released on medical parole on Jan. 20. He visited the College on Feb. 19 to speak with members of the community about his experiences and his gratitude to Middlebury for its continued support while he was imprisoned. "We wanted to honor Ngawang Choephel as a scholar with a Middlebury connection who symbolizes the idea of academic freedom and who suffered for that idea," said Schine.

Currently the honorary director of the American International Group (AIG), an insurance company, and chairman of the Freeman Foundation, Freeman has done extensive work with overseas insurance since he began his career in 1947.

The Freeman Foundation aims to promote a greater appreciation of Asian cultures, histories and economies among Americans, as well as bringing a better understanding of American people, institutions and purposes to the people of Asia. In addition to its international goals, the Foundation strives to preserve and protect the forests, lands and natural resources of the United States for future generations to enjoy and make use of. As the Freeman family has a long association with Vermont, the foundation has offered significant support for the state's environment, specifically land conservation and farmland preservation.

Sobel has been a science journalist for 30 years, writing for such periodicals at The New York Times, The New Yorker and Life magazine. Her ability to blend her appreciation for literature and the sciences is evident in "Galileo's Daughter" and "Longitude," which have both won her great praise in literary and scientific circles alike.

In the Jan. 16, 2002, edition of The Middlebury Campus, President John McCardell said, "In her ability to write with clarity, intelligence and style about a subject that might more easily be treated by resorting to an impenetrable technical vocabulary, Dava Sobel broadens and heightens her considerable readership's understanding."

Swenson founded the Vermont Council on the Humanities in 1974 with the goal of achieving full literacy in the state. In 1978 he began library-based reading and discussion programs that are now permanent fixtures in 150 of Vermont's 205 public libraries. This program was later expanded nationally through the American Library Association thanks to a grant from the National Endowment of Humanities.

Swenson retired from his position as chairman of the Council on Feb. 1, 2002. Before beginning his work to promote literacy in Vermont as well as nationally, he taught history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and at Oberlin College in Ohio before joining the history faculty at Johnson State College in Vermont.

Wilkins has a colorful history in public affairs and journalism, beginning with his role as Assistant Attorney General to President Lyndon B. Johnson. He has written for both The New York Times and The Washington Post, and while at The Post, as a member of the editorial page staff, Wilkins shared the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of the Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Herbert Block.

His dedication to public service is apparent, as Wilkins is the past chairman of the Pulitzer Prize Board, past chair of the Board of Trustees of the Africa-America Institute and is currently a member of the Board of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Wilkins holds a law degree from the University of Michigan.