Honorary Degree Citations

William Redington Hewlett

At Stanford University you and David Packard had the good fortune to be class- mates and close friends. In 1939 you pooled your resources and formed the Hewlett-Packard Company. Your initial capital of $538 and your plant a small garage in Palo Alto were just large enough to make it possible for you to fill your first big sales order: the production of nine oscillators for the sound effects in Walt Disney's Fantasia!

In the past 44 years your company has become a major manufacturer of precision electronic equipment, with 68,000 em- ployees world-wide and annual sales of over $4 billion.

But your contribution is best measured by qualitative standards: an insistence on excellence in all phases of your operations, and a management philosophy that places the greatest value on the sharing of goals, information, and profits with all your em- ployees.

From the earliest days you were close to your employees, took the time to under- stand their jobs, and had a genuine interest in their welfare. You encouraged them to consult freely with management, to make suggestions, and to feel part of a team. Your innovative style of "management by" wandering around" is difficult to chart or- ganizationally, but it has proven to be very effective.

You have always encouraged creative so- lutions to problems. During a recession, one of your plants found it had 10 percent more employees than it needed for its pro- duction schedule. Instead of firing 10 per- cent of the workers, it was decided that every°ne in the company including management would take alternate Fri- days off, without pay. The plan was imple- mented, and when times improved, you still had a skilled and grateful work force.

Business and engineering are not your only interests. You are a serious student of botany and history, and Arnold Toynbee has said about you: "He knows more history than half the historians in the world."

It is a pleasure to welcome you into the Dartmouth family, by awarding you the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering.

Joseph Lane Kirkland

Your childhood experiences in a cotton milltown, and your later duty on merchant marine ships, helped shape your view on labor's role in society and led you to an association with Local 688 of the Interna- tional Organization of Masters, Mates, and Pilots.

With a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgetown University's School of For- eign Service, you joined the staff of the American Federation of Labor and began a lifetime association with the labor move- ment. Your service and contributions to the cause of labor were so noteworthy that in 1979 you were elected to succeed your friend and mentor, George Meany, as President of the AFL-CIO.

You have campaigned against racial and sexual discrimination, both within the la- bor movement and outside it. You have championed the importance of collective bargaining, as well as that of arriving at just solutions to the problems of our econ- omy through compromise and accommo- dation, between labor and management. Three United States Presidents have recog- nized your talents and sought your advice. They did not always agree with you and on more than one occasion you made it abundantly clear you did not agree with them!

Your talents as a concilliator, an inde- pendent and innovative thinker, and a consensus-builder are vital to the well-be- ing of society. You are an articulate spokesman for labor, as many in this audi- ence who heard you lecture here last fall, as a Class of 1930 Fellow, can testify. You are also endowed with the patience to be an amateur archaeologist and the capacity to love that subject enough to teach your- self how to read hieroglyphics.

You have traveled far since you first went down to the sea in ships, but one of the winds that has always guided you is the conviction that human beings have a right to work under just conditions and to enjoy a fair share of the fruits of their labors. For your devotion to helping millions of peo- ple realize that ideal, Dartmouth is proud to welcome you to her family, by awarding you the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

Toni Morrison

Born and raised in a steel milltown in Ohio, as a young girl you wanted to be a ballet dancer, but eventually you found your own way to do what great dancers do: suspend the law of gravity and "fly."

An avid adolescent reader, you absorbed the great literature describing a world al- most totally foreign to your own experi- ence.

With a B.A. from Howard University and an M. A. from Cornell, you eventually returned to Howard to teach English.

It was there, in the early 1960s that you began to write fiction seriously, finding in those beautiful and risky leaps of imagina- tion the activity that gave the most mean- ing to your life.

About your craft, which is also your obsession, you have said: "Writing has for me everything that good work ought to have. ... I love even the drudgery, the revision, the proofreading; so, even if pub- lishing did grind to a halt, I would contin- ue to write."

Fortunately for all of us, publishing has not ground to a halt. Your first novel, TheBluest Eye, established you as a wonderfully perceptive and literate observer, with the power to tell an absorbing story while con- veying an extraordinary amount of history, folklore, sociology, and the music of lan- guage.

Your second book, Sula, met even greater critical and public acclaim. And your third novel, Song of Solomon, con- firmed you as a major American writer. A story of the search for family roots and personal identity, Song of Solomon, won the National Book Critics' Circle Award as the best work of fiction in 1977, and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Final- ly, two years ago your fourth book, TarBaby, won even greater acclaim and put you on the cover of Newsweek, an event you handled with an equal mixture of realism and humor.

A writer, a senior editor at Random House, and an educator you have shared your talents with students at a number of colleges and universities. Last year you were here at Dartmouth as a Montgomery Fellow. Our students and faculty were en- thusiastic in their praise. Finally, and per- haps in your view most importantly, you have somehow raised as a single parent two fine sons.

The extraordinary people in your stories are, like you, firm believers in supernatu- ral powers, so one might account for your multiple virtuosity by attributing it to magic handed down from your ancestors.

On the other hand, your enormous rev- erence for black women of the past who, as a matter of course, had to build houses, raise families, work the land, and pass along to the next generation the wisdom needed for survival that reverence could lead us to assume that you believe your great grandmother is watching and that you would be terribly ashamed if she saw that you could do only one thing superbly.

Whatever the explanation, we are proud to welcome you into the Dartmouth fam- ily, and to recognize both the magic and the hard work, by awarding you the honor- ary degree of Doctor of Letters.

Justin Armstrong Stanley

A son of Dartmouth, Class of 1933, and a graduate of the Columbia Law School, you have devoted your life to the practice and advancement of law, only two interruptions.

In World War II you served as a naval communications officer in the European and Pacific theaters, and from 1952—54, at the request of President John Sloan Dick- ey, you took a leave of absence from your Chicago law firm to assume the responsi- bilities of vice president for development at Dartmouth College.

You were the first officer of the College to serve in that capacity, and the programs and concepts you initiated and designed some 30 years ago were the basis of a devel- opment effort that is now recognized as one of the best in the nation.

Within your profession you are consid- ered not only an outstanding attorney, but indeed, "a lawyer's lawyer." In 1967 you were elected president of the Chicago Bar Association, and in 1976 you became president of the American Bar Associ- ation. At that time one of the ABA staff described you as "the closest to an intellec- tual of any ABA president" a character- ization that we assume was intended to be complimentary! And it certainly became quickly apparent that you not only had thoughts, but you were not at all hesitant about voicing them.

You believed that although our legal philosophy was still sound, our tools for dispensing that philosophy were grossly over-taxed. As one answer to that, you proposed the establishment of tribunals with specially-trained judges who would hold sessions in which the parties them- selves would represent their own cases and "lawyers would not be permitted to par- ticipate." Only a lawyer who had already achieved the presidency of the ABA could afford to make such an extraordinary and undoubtedly beneficial statement! And probably only a lawyer trained in the liberal arts would do so.

When you came back to help your Col- lege 31 years ago, you said you believed that any contribution you could make to the successful operation of an independent liberal arts college would be a contribution to society.

Your lifetime of accomplishment is tes- timony to the wisdom of that statement. On the occasion of your 50th reunion and in the presence not only of your wife, Leigh, but also of an impressive number of the great Class of 1933, it is a special pleasure to recognize your contribution, and to award you the honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Walter Hugo Stockmayer

We take special pleasure in honoring you today, because for more than twenty years, you have honored this institution by your presence. A physical chemist and ex- pert on the quantum mechanics of the large molecules called "polymers," you are an outstanding teacher-scholar, with a world-wide reputation.

It was Dartmouth's good fortune that 22 years ago, after two decades of teaching and research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, you decided to transplant yourself to Hanover. There are some who might ask why a highly successful scientist and full professor at MIT would leave that excellent institution to come to a smaller, liberal arts college. Indeed, when someone did, many years ago, ask you that question you answered, in part: "I love shuttling back and forth between intensive teaching and intensive research, and I found the proportions I could devote to my two con- cerns (at MIT) were moving away from my ideal of 50-50."

You are, in fact, a person who has al- ways been fascinated by "delicate bal- ances," whether they be balances in the structure of molecules, the precarious bal- ance of the human body while scaling a mountain peak, or the subtle tonal bal- ances in a Mozart sonata.

Another reason that you came to Dart- mouth was that two of your most distin- guished teachers had come here. They were John Wolfenden, now Professor Emeritus, who had been your teacher at Oxford when you were there as a Rhodes Scholar in the 19305, and Francis W. Sears, who had been your teacher at MIT.

Another reason you came to Dartmouth was that it appeared to be closer to the mountains than MIT was, and you have always had a love affair with mountains. Indeed, your whole family likes moun- tains, and two decades ago your wife, Syl- via and teen-age sons, Ralph and Hugh, must surely have favored the move north- ward.

Long ago you became a charter member of the "4,000-Footer Club," that special category of altitude addicts who have climbed all 46 of the 4,000-ft. mountains in New Hampshire.

Although you officially "retired" in 1979, we are grateful that you remain committed to your "academic balance, and continue to teach here every year. Be- cause you represent in the finest sense that for which a liberal arts college stands, I am delighted to award you the degree of Doc- tor of Humane Letters.

Paul Efthemios Tsongas

The son of a Greek immigrant, you grew up in a household in which the domi- nant values were those of education and hard work.

After graduation from Dartmouth in 1962, with an A.B. in history and a desire to help others, you joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in an Ethiopian vil lage, encouraging teenagers to expan their limited horizons by aspiring to and achieving a university education In describing that experience later yoU said: has

"Nothing before or after that time shaped my view of the world so deeply."

With a law degree from Yale, and fol- lowing another brief tour in the Peace Corps, you entered the political arena. Successfully keeping secret a youthful in- discretion in which you once registered as a Republican, you won a seat on the Lowell, Mass., city council as a Democrat.

You served your apprenticeship at the local and county levels, before serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representa- tives and, in 1978, winning your present Senate seat.

Despite your political success, you have never forgotten your hometown roots. Your efforts to restore Lowell's fortunes prompted one long-time resident to say: "We're probably the only city in the coun- try with a city councillor sitting in the United States Senate."

In the Seriate you have won the respect of your colleagues for your hard work, your willingness to listen, and your capacity to compromise. Not only are you among the most knowledgeable senators on questions of energy conservation and foreign rela- tions, you have also contributed signifi- cantly to the revitalization of the policies of the Democratic Party. Your book, TheRoad From Here, provides a statement of the "Neo-Liberalism" that you believe is needed at this time: "a blending of realism and compassion

Your own realism is evident in your conviction that both labor and manage- ment must develop new attitudes toward their joint enterprise, and shift from a con- frontational model to a model based on partnership.

At a time when some of the youth of our nation have expressed skepticism about the value of becoming involved with the political process, it is important to honor one of our own Dartmouth sons who exem- plifies those qualities of intelligence, in- tegrity, energy, and dedication to the pub- lic good qualities that should be the attributes of all those who involve them- selves in governance. I am pleased to strengthen your bond to this College by awarding you the honorary degree of Doc- tor of Laws.

Paul Adolph Volcker

After you were graduated summa cumlaude from Princeton, where you played second-string basketball and were de- scribed as a "casually brilliant student," your M.A. in political economy and gov- ernment from Harvard, and your training at the London School of Economics pre- pared you well for a brilliant career in banking and government service.

You served as deputy under secretary and later as under secretary for mone- tary affairs in the treasury department and, subsequently were appointed president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. It is fair to say that for the better part of the last quarter-century, there have been few ma- jor developments in international mone- tary policy involving the United States in which you did not participate actively or, indeed, play a leading role.

When you were appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in 1979 by President Carter, enthusiastic messages poured in from all over the world. Asked at the time how you felt about this extraor- dinary expression of praise, you said: "It's much more important what they say when I leave the job."

Given the nature of politics, one can only speculate whether you are now close to that time of leaving, but several author- ative sources have already made clear their reactions to the idea of your unemploy- ment. The Wall Street Journal editors have declared: "We can think of dozens of rea- sons for firing Mr. Volcker, all of them bad." And a distinguished Boston banker (one with close connections to this institu- tion) wrote in The Boston Globe recently: "The prospects for sustained non-infla- tionary growth both in the U.S. and the world economy are now better than they have been in over a decade. More than any other individual, Paul Volcker must re- ceive the credit for this important accom- plishment."

And when U.S. News & World Report asked leaders in a variety of fields to rank the most influential men and women in America, President Reagan was ranked first and you were ranked second.

For millions of people throughout the world you are a symbol of integrity and fiscal responsibility. We trust that any re- cent launchers of "trial balloons" will have taken seriously the widespread expressions of confidence in a man who has been called "a valuable national resource," and we are privileged to welcome a Princeton/Har- vard/London School of Economics man into the Dartmouth family, and to award you the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.