May 11, 2000

LARRY FAULKNER NAMED SMU HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENT

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DALLAS (SMU) — Chemist, educator and University of Texas President Larry Faulkner will receive the honorary Doctor of Science degree from Southern Methodist University during its 85th annual commencement ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 20, in Moody Coliseum.

Recognized as the 1998 recipient of the Charles N. Reilly Award for more than 30 years of research in electrochemistry and analytical chemistry by the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry, Faulkner was named the 27th president of the nation’s largest university in April 1998. His previous administrative posts include having served formerly as provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and as chemistry professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry at SMU in 1966, then earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in only three years, instead of the usual five years, from the University of Texas at Austin in 1969.

Faulkner has taught chemistry at Harvard University, the University of Illinois and the University of Texas at Austin. He has published more than 120 scientific papers, directed 40 doctoral theses and received numerous awards, including the American Chemical Society’s Award in Analytical Chemistry and the U.S. Department of Energy Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in Materials Chemistry in 1986.

"The Department of Chemistry in Dedman College has been renowned for decades for the accomplishments of its graduates, and Dr. Larry Faulkner is one of the most distinguished of that extraordinary group," said Dedman College Dean Jasper Neel. "Everyone in chemistry and in the college is proud to claim him as an alumnus."

Other honorary degree recipients are civic activist Ernesto Cortés Jr., Doctor of Laws; Peruvian priest and Father of Liberation Theology Gustavo Gutiérrez, Doctor of Divinity; and philanthropist and Dallas civic leader Nancy Lee Blackburn Hamon, Doctor of Arts.

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Click here to read about all the SMU 2000 Honorary Degree Recipients

Click here to read about Commencement 2000

Click here to read more about Ernesto Cortés Jr.

Click here to read more about Gustavo Gutiérrez

Click here to read more about Nancy Lee Blackburn Hamon