6/12/00

Mark Shwartz, News Service (650) 723-9296;
e-mail: mshwartz@stanford.edu

Casper receives honorary university degrees

President Gerhard Casper received honorary degrees from two of the world's leading institutions of higher learning this spring.

Yale University conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Casper at its 299th commencement at New Haven, Conn., on May 22. He received an LL.M. degree from the Yale Law School in 1962, 30 years before becoming president of Stanford.

In selecting Casper, university leaders described Casper as "one of the most respected and successful leaders in higher education in the last two decades."

During the ceremony, he was praised for strengthening humanities at Stanford and for defending the independence of private universities nationwide.

In addition to Casper, Yale conferred honorary degrees on nine other individuals including conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr.; the Right Rev. Desmond M. Tutu, Anglican archbishop emeritus and anti-apartheid leader of South Africa; New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan; British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard; and Helen Vendler, professor of literature at Harvard University.

On May 26, Casper received another honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden's oldest university, founded in 1477.

Uppsala conferred the degree "as a further confirmation of the bonds between the universities," noting Casper's lead role in establishing the Stanford and Swedish Learning Lab network.

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