Three honorary degrees and the North Country Citation will be awarded at St. Lawrence University's Commencement ceremony, to be held Sunday, May 19, at 10 a.m. on the Owen D. Young Library Quadrangle. In the event of bad weather, the ceremony will be held in Appleton Arena.
Receiving honorary degrees this year are:
- E.B. Wilson '53, of Chathamport, Massachusetts, chair emeritus of the Board of Trustees. A private investor and consultant, Wilson holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and served as chair of the Board from 1995 through 2001. He has been a University trustee since 1985.
- Luis Eduardo Luna, an anthropologist and ethnobotanist specializing in the investigation of psychointegrator plants. He is a senior lecturer at the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland, and is engaged in the creation of a research center on the study of psychointegrator plants - sacred plants, often called hallucinogens and psychedelics, that have played important roles in ancient and contemporary societies - in Florianopolis, Brazil, and in the organization of special experiential and theoretical seminars in the Brazilian Amazon. He is co-editor with St. Lawrence Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures Steven F. White of "Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon's Sacred Vine," and the author of several books.
- Gloria Naylor, author of "The Women of Brewster Place," "Linden Hills," "Mama Day" and "Bailey's Cafe," among other works. Naylor won the National Book Award for first fiction in 1983 for "The Women of Brewster Place," which was also adapted for television, starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey. She has participated in the St. Lawrence Writers Series.
- Bill McKibben, the author and environmentalist from Johnsburg, New York, whose writing appears regularly in The New York Times and Adirondack Life, among other publications, will receive the North Country Citation. The author of "The End of Nature," "The Age of Missing Information" and "Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously," McKibben has been a frequent visitor to St. Lawrence over the years, contributing to the environmental studies program and the Writers Series.
St. Lawrence annually awards the North Country Citation to individuals from the region who, through their professional and volunteer endeavors, have improved the quality of life in the North Country.
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