Nawal M. Nour, M.D., M.P.H, Doctor of Science
Born in Khartoum, raised in Egypt and England, you became alarmed even as a young girl at your friends’ experiences with the cultural rite of passage that involves genital cutting. You have turned this alarm into a full campaign to eradicate the current practice and to heal women who have been affected — one hundred thirty million worldwide, including one hundred sixty-eight thousand in the U.S. You established this country’s first African Women’s Health Center to focus on their physical and emotional needs. You developed the surgical procedure that reduces many of their medical problems and eases childbirth. You wrote a guide to help physicians treat in sensitive ways a condition they are often shocked to encounter. At the same time you have launched a grassroots campaign to discuss with parents, politicians, and religious leaders the health effects of this tradition and the web of beliefs, fears, and social pressures that sustain it. Perhaps the greatest possible tribute to your holistic care came from the Somali refugee who said, “She understands me when I talk to her.” With this pioneering work, you provide a culturally sensitive model of public health practice of the kind that our globalized world will increasingly need.
I hereby declare you recipient of the honorary degree Doctor of Science, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 1, 2008