Honorary Degrees

Walsh McDermott

. . . Yourself a victim of tuberculosis, you have waged a life-long fight against infectious disease.

In your research laboratory at Cornell you and your students pioneered in the chemotherapy of infectious diseases. You enjoyed two decades of success with a series of miracle drugs, but you must have experienced your greatest personal satisfaction in finding a revolutionary treatment for tuberculosis.

Since tuberculosis is one of the major killers of the disadvantaged, it was natural for you to turn to the problem of health care delivery for the poor. Your expertise has benefited the City of New York, the nation, and the poor of the entire world. Most remarkable is your success in bringing improved health care to the Navaho Nation. You achieved this by combining your knowledge of disease with a sensitivity towards an ancient culture. It was your imaginative blend of modern medicine with the traditional religious role of the Navaho medicine man that succeeded where others had failed.

Your quick and dry wit, your intolerance for bluff and bluster, and your penetrating insight into the most complex problems has been sought after by the highest councils. And those who have been fortunate enough to work with you testify to the lasting impact you have had on their lives. ...

Thomas G. Murdough '26

. . .Your journey with the American Hospital Supply Corporation started inauspiciously. You were assigned as a salesman to the dustbowl region in the midst of the Depression. . . . From that dustbowl you moved to corporate headquarters in Evanston and eventually became the fourth president of the company.

You are a great believer in the importance of close human relations in the corporate world. Your warm personality, your sincerity and your integrity set a distinctive management style. Your inauguration of a college recruitment program attracted to your company a steady stream of talented young men, assuring the future of that remarkable growth company. When you first joined American Hospital Supply, it was a modest company with sales of one million dollars; by your retirement 33 years later it had grown into a highly respected corporate giant with sales of half a billion.

Throughout your career you assumed a wide variety of community responsibilities, including service to your alma mater. You have been a leader among the alumni, a highly successful fund-raiser, and a generous benefactor of the College. One of the loveliest buildings on campus bears your name.

Today, on your 50th reunion, Dartmouth College takes great pleasure in recognizing a distinguished industrialist and a loyal son. . . .

Pauli Murray

Lawyer, educator, poet and civil rights worker ... you graduated from Hunter College, have law degrees from Howard University and the University of California, and a doctorate from Yale.

But an equally important part of your education was being denied admission by the University of North Carolina because of your race and by Harvard Law School because of your sex. Perhaps that is why you wrote one of the first legal articles to espouse equal employment for Negroes and the first modern legal argument for equality of women. While you are a great believer in the power of the written word, you have not limited your activism to journal articles.

You were jailed in 1940 for attempting to integrate a bus, led sit-ins in Washington restaurants during the '40s, spent a year in Accra teaching constitutional law at the Ghana Law School, served on the President's Commission on the Status of Women, on the Board of the American Civil Liberties Union, and are a founder of the National Organization for Women. You see the fight against racial and sexual discrimination as a single fight. ...

A few years ago you resigned a prestigious chair at Brandeis University to enter a theological seminary in the hope of becoming an Episcopal priest, because - in your own words - you do not want to surrender your church to conservatism.

You have chosen your life to be "a positive force for reconciliation both in terms of race and in terms of sex."

Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. '42

. . . The recipient of a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard, you have dedicated your life to higher education.

As an undergraduate you demonstrated a high potential for making a significant positive impact on society. You worked for Dartmouth Broadcasting, wrote eloquent editorials for The Dartmouth, were a member of Green Key, secretary of Palaeopitus, a senior fellow, and graduated summa cum laude. It seems fitting that later you were given President Hopkins' academic gown!

From Harvard you went to Wesleyan, where you rose to the position of provost. It was from there that you received the call to become president of Skidmore College, at a time of crisis in Skidmore's history. You inherited a mandate to move the campus - with no visible,means of achieving that goal. For the past 11 years you have been engaged in a monumental balancing act: a college standing on two legs, with the old one shrinking while the new one grew. You even managed to sell the old leg and yet retained its use as a crutch until the new leg was fully grown. And you have achieved all this while building up Skidmore's academic strength and reputation.

... You seem to delight in championing difficult causes; you served on the Trustee committee on coeducation at Dartmouth, and you have even fought for recognition of the role of a college president's wife!

Robert O. Anderson

. . . Most people would find raising cattle on a million acres to be a full-time occupation. This should be particularly true of one who has made as many innovations in the breeding of cattle as you have, and who insists on taking his turn as a cow hand.

But you also have a deep commitment to education and to the performing arts. You have been the main mover in inducing businesses to support the arts. In addition to your many corporate boards you serve as a trustee of the University of Chicago, your alma mater, of Cal Tech, and of the University of Denver. . . . And you play a major national role, espousing the importance of the humanities in continuing education, as chairman of the Aspen Institute.

In your spare time, you are chairman and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Richfield Company. With a lifetime of experience in the oil industry, you have built this company to the point where it rivals the industrial giants. You have also made it a company noted for its unorthodoxy. You are an oilman concerned about conservation and the waste of our natural resources. Your company pioneers in concern for its local communities ....

Arthur Fiedler

. . . You joined the Boston Symphony at age 20 where, like your father and two of your uncles, you played the violin. Unlike them, you also played viola, piano, celesta, organ and percussion. It became clear to you that the only way to play all the instruments was to become a conductor. But when you first applied for the vacancy with the Boston Pops, you were turned down in favor of a "bigger name." Perhaps the selectors sensed how dangerous your choice was to be: The Pops had 17 different conductors during its first 45 years. During the next 46 it had Arthur Fiedler.

... You have recorded more pieces than any other conductor and have sold 50 million records. You have done more to spread the appreciation of music than any other person in history. You have made the Esplanade as famous as Symphony Hall. Your secret is the ability to make every kind of music enjoyable. You play classical and popular, old and avant-garde, Beethoven and Beatles - all on the same program. A responsive audience brings a special twinkle to your eye, but it is reliably reported that the gift of a brand new fire engine will produce an equally-bright gleam. Like that vehicle, your pace tends to be "allegro con moto" - asked at age 80 about retirement, you replied: "He who rests, rots."

The six honored in '76 (from left): RobertO. Anderson, Dr. Walsh McDermott,Arthur Fiedler, Pauli Murray, Thomas G.Murdough and Joseph C. Palamountain.