Douglas J. Bennet, Doctor of Laws
With your newly minted Ph.D. in History from Harvard, you served on Capitol Hill, including as the first Staff Director of the Senate Budget Committee, and in the State Department, attaining the rank of Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. As President of National Public Radio you led that network from near bankruptcy to a doubling of its stations and tripling of its listeners, establishing NPR as a major contributor to our nation’s public life. Work in politics and diplomacy and with people who like to hear themselves talk might be the perfect preparation for a university presidency. This may help explain the great success of your twelve years at the helm of Wesleyan. Known from the start as a fresh thinker and a builder of consensus, you engaged the whole campus in open discussion of fundamental matters of education. The result was a bold plan to advance the university’s academic core—adding faculty, expanding financial aid, and enhancing the physical infrastructure for teaching and learning. Wesleyan is substantially stronger for your effective stewardship and the presidents of many colleges, including this one, have benefited from your wise counsel. What a warm and generous colleague you have been! You head now into retirement with not only the gratitude and affection of your alma mater but with the deep admiration of all in higher education who have been blessed by your wonderfully understated but strong presence.
I hereby declare you recipient of the honorary degree Doctor of Laws, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 3, 2007