Oxford Announces Honorary Degrees For 2000

Eight distinguished figures are set to receive honorary degrees from the University of Oxford at Encaenia, Oxford Universitys annual degree ceremony which takes place on Wednesday 28 June. Subject to the approval of Congregation, the Universitys parliament of dons on 7 March, honorary degrees will be awarded to the following:

Helen Bamber, OBE, who will be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa, has devoted her life to the promotion of human rights, following her experience as a member of one of the first rehabilitation teams to enter the Belsen concentration camp at the end of the Second World War. She was a founder member of the National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital and, in late 1985, established the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, of which she is director. Mrs Bamber is patron of Women Against Violence, Belfast, and of Latin American Mothers. She was named European Woman of Achievement in 1993 and awarded the OBE in 1997.

Dame Judi Dench, DBE, who will be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and performed at the Old Vic from 1957 to 1961. She has undertaken almost all the main female roles in classical theatre and a wide range of modern ones, including the musicals Cabaret and A Little Night Music. She has played in many films, including Mrs Brown and Shakespeare in Love, and has frequently been seen on television. She has directed a variety of works and is a member of the Board of the Royal National Theatre. Dame Judi was awarded the OBE in 1970 and created a Dame in 1988. She has received numerous international awards, including an Oscar in 1999.

Sir Howard Hodgkin, CBE, who will be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, studied at the Camberwell School of Art and the Bath Academy of Art. After teaching at Charterhouse School, he returned to the Bath Academy, where he taught from 1956 to 1966. He was an occasional tutor at the Slade School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art and he spent the academic year 1976-7 in Oxford as Fellow in Creative Art at Brasenose College, of which he is now an Honorary Fellow. His paintings and prints are in many international public collections, including the Tate Gallery and the British Museum, and he has designed for ballets performed by the Ballet Rambert and the Royal Ballet. Sir Howard was awarded the CBE in 1977 and knighted in 1992. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1985 and the Second Prize at the John Moores Exhibition in 1976 and 1980.

The Viscount Runciman, CBE (MA Cambridge) FBA, who will be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa., was a Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he has been a Fellow since 1971. He has held academic posts at the University of Sussex and at Harvard, as well as a Visiting Fellowship at Nuffield College, of which he is now an Honorary Fellow. He was Chairman of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice 1991-93 and has also served as Treasurer of the Child Poverty Action Group, President of the General Council of British Shipping and Deputy Chairman of the Financial Services Authority. Lord Runciman was awarded the CBE in 1987 and is widely regarded as the countrys leading sociological theorist.

Professor Quentin Skinner (MA Cambridge) FBA, who will be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa., was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and was appointed Professor of Political Science at Cambridge in 1978, becoming Regius Professor of Modern History in 1996. He was elected to a Fellowship at Christs College in 1962 and to the Vice- Mastership in 1997. Since 1999 he has been a Pro- Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Professor Skinner has held distinguished visiting posts at leading higher education institutions in the USA, France and Australia and has pioneered a distinctive approach to the history of political thought, illuminating the humanistic political thought of the Italian Renaissance, particularly that of Machiavelli.

Sir Aaron Klug OM, (B.Sc Witwatersraud; MSc Cape Town; PhD Sc.D Cambridge), who will be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, was educated in South Africa. After teaching in Cape Town he became an 1851 Exhibition Overseas Fellow at Cambridge in 1949 and also held a Rouse Ball Research Studentship at Trinity College. In 1954 he was appointed to a Nuffield Research Fellowship at Birkbeck College, London, where he headed the Virus Structure Research Group from 1958 to 1961. He returned to Cambridge in 1962, and served as Director of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology from 198696. Sir Aaron was knighted in 1988 and received the Order of Merit in 1995. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982 and was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1969, becoming President in 1995.