The Recipients

Edward Albee, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright; author of more than a dozen plays including A Delicate Balance, Seascape, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?: " Your plays portray poignant and frightful failures of communication. They implore us, in the manner of cautionary tales, to live our lives honestly and fully, lest our failure to do so leave a residue of regret."

Paavo Lipponen '64, Prime minister of Finland: "In a distinguished career of public service, you have established a reputation for being more interested in the achievements of substantive policy than in the trivialities of traditional politics."

Sir V.S. Naipual, Author of more than two dozen books, in- House for Mr. Biswas, The Mimic Men, Way in the World: "You are considered by many to be the greatest living writer in the English language. In graceful, disciplined, and sometimes ironic prose, your works ponder the role that an appreciation of the past plays in understanding the cultural configurations of the present."

Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton: "As one of this nation's leading historians of the American South during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, you have deepened our understanding of the American past."

Walter R. Peterson '47, Former governor of New Hampshire and president of Franklin Pierce College: "In a life devoted to public service, you have embodied a decency, a forthrightness, a competence, and a commitment to community that has enriched this state and its people."

Ruth J. Simmons, President of Smith College: "You enjoy this nation's respect in leading a distinguished sister institution in its continuing pursuit of academic excellence."

Harold E. Varmus, Director of National Institutes of Health: "You received the Nobel Prize in medicine for your discovery that normal cells contain genes that can malfunction to cause cancer—a revelation that opened promising avenues of research on such disorders as AIDS and breast cancer."

William Julius Wilson, Professor of social policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard: "As an authority on this nation's urban poor, you have made powerful contributions to our understanding of the root causes of those urban ills that plague our public life and the personal lives of many of our fellow citizens."