2020s

2021

• Reginald Dwayne Betts, LittD, poet, memoirist, and social justice advocate
• Catherine Coleman Flowers, ScD, scholar, author, environmental health activist
• Scott Gottlieb ’94, ScD, physician, public health and policy advisor and advocate, former FDA commissioner

2020

• Rev. Dr. William Joseph Barber II, LHD, pastor and social justice advocate
• Bradley Whitford ’81, LHD, actor and political activist
• Jacqueline Woodson, LittD, author and poet
  

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2010s

2019

• Hazel V. Carby, LittD, Yale University professor and director of the Initiative on Race, Gender and Globalization
• Saidiya Hartman ’84, LittD, writer, Columbia University professor
• Edwin C. Sanders II ’69, LHD, founder of Metropolitan Interdenominational Church

2018

• Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, ’09, ScD, scientist, entrepreneur, Board chair emeritus
• Anita Faye Hill, LLD, educator, social commentator

2017

• Jo Handelsman, ScD, scientist, educator
• Cristina Jiménez Moreta, LHD, activist on behalf of immigrants
• Claudia B. Rankine, LittD, writer

2016

• Kwame Anthony Appiah, LittD, Professor of Philosophy and Law, NY University
• Patricia Lee Smith, DFA, Writer, performer, Visual Artist
• Bryan Stevenson, LHD, Founder and CEO, Equal Justice Initiative

2015

• Lin-Manuel Miranda '02, LHD, Composer-lyricist, Actor
  
• Michael P. Price, LHD, Retired Exec. Director, Goodspeed Musicals
• Beverly Daniel Tatum '75, P'04, LHD, President, Spelman College, Emerita

2014

• Helena Kraemer, ScD, Professor of Biostatistics in Psychiatry
• Theodore M. Shaw '76, LLD, Advocate for Equity and Inclusion
• Hayden White, LHD, Theorist of History

2013

• Majora Carter '88, LHD, President, Majora Carter Group (Urban revitalization strategist)
• James Dresser '63, P'93, LHD, Former Board Chair, Trustee Emeritus
• Joss Whedon '87, LittD, Writer, Director, Producer

2012

• Michael Bennet '87, LLD, United States Senator
  
• Glenn Ligon '82, DFA, Artist
• Cecile Richards, P'13, LHD, President, Planned Parenthood of America

2011

• Barbara N. Cook, DFA, Soprano Soloist and Broadway Performer
• Paul E. Farmer, ScD, Co-founder, Partners in Health, MD, PhD
  
• Alberto Ibargüen '66, P'97, LLD, Chief Executive Officer, Knight Foundation
• Jean Adams Shaw P'79, LHD, Retired Director, Wesleyan Center for the Arts
• Ralph H. "Biff" Shaw II '51, P'79, LHD, Retired CEO, Shaw Belting & Farmers/Mechanics Bank

2010

• Stanley Cavell, LittD, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Harvard
• John Hickenlooper ’74, MA'80, LLD, Mayor, City of Denver
  
• Ruth Simmons, LittD, President, Brown University
• Richard K. Winslow ’40, P'71, LittD, Professor of Music, Emeritus

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2000s

2009

• Jennifer Alexander ’88, P'15,'16, LHD, Community Leader/Children and Economic Development
• Mark Masselli, P15,'16, LHD, Community Leader/Health Care
• Azim Premji P'99, LHD, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
• Anna Quindlen P’09, LittD, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author and Columnist

2008

• Jamaica Kincaid, LHD, Author
• Senator Barack Obama, LLD, United States Senator, Democratic Presidential Nominee
  
• Morton Schapiro, LLD, President, Williams College
• Philip Trager ’56, P’81, DFA, Photographer, Attorney

2007

• Jewel Plummer Cobb, P'79, ScD, Research Biologist
• Alan M. Dachs ‘70, P'98, LHD, Trustee Emeritus and Chair Emeritus
• Jim Lehrer, P'85, LHD, NewsHour Anchor
  
• Nobutaka Machimura, LHD, Former Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs
• Thomas Malone, ScD, Environmentalist
• Rosa DeLauro, LHD, United States Congresswoman

2006

• John Hope Franklin, LittD, Professor of History, Emeritus, Duke
  
• Mary O. McWilliams ’71, LHD, President, Regence BlueShield, Trustee Emerita

2005

• William Barber, P'85, LittD, Andrews Professor of Economics, Emeritus
• William "Bill" Belichick ’75, P’07, '15, LHD, Head Coach, New England Patriots
• Amy Gutmann, LittD, President, University of Pennsylvania
  
• Edward P. Jones, LHD, Author, Pulitzer Prize 2004

2004

• William Donaldson, LHD, Chairman, US Securities & Exchange Commission
• Yuri Kochiyama, LHD, Social Justice Activist
• Njabulo Ndebele, LittD, Author/Vice Chancellor University of Cape Town
  
• Robert Schumann '44, LHD, Businessman, Philanthropist

2003

• Doreen Freeman P’77, LHD, Adminstrator Freeman Foundation
• Yusef Komunyakaa, Doctor of Arts, Pulitzer Prize Poet
• Jody Williams, LHD, Nobel Peace Prize/ICBL Founder

2002

• William Manchester, LittD, author
• Walter Massey, LHD, President, Morehouse College
• Martha Nussbaum, LittD, Professor of Law and Ethics
  
• Stuart F. Silloway ’29, P’59, GP’91 LHD, Wesleyan Trustee Emeritus

2001

• Evelyn Fox Keller, LittD, Professor of History, MIT
  
• Tom Gerety, LHD, President, Amherst College
• Bernice Johnson Reagon, LittD, Founder, Sweet Honey in the Rock
• Edson "Pelé" Arantes do Nascimento, P'01, LHD, International Soccer Player

2000

• Nancy N. Campbell, MALS'80, LHD, Past Chair National Trust/ Historic Preservation
• Clint Eastwood, DFA, Actor, Producer, Citizen Activist
• Rosa L. Parks, LHD, Civil Rights Pioneer
• Harold Varmus, P'99, ScD, Nobel Prize Laureate/ Medicine
  

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1990s

1999

• Thadious M. Davis, LittD, Professor of English, Author
• Tony Kushner, DFA, Playwright
• Bill Lann Lee, LLD, Acting Ass't Attorney General, Civil Rights, US Dept of Justice
• Steven B. Pfeiffer ’69, P'99, '05, '08, '13, LLD, Chair of Wes Board Emeritus, Fulbright & Jaworski
• Amartya Kumar Sen P'99, Hon. '95, Economist and Nobel Prize Winner
  
• K. Barry Sharpless, P'99, '04, ScD, Professor of Chemistry, Scripps Institute

1998

• Linda Chavez-Thompson, LLD, Exec VP, AFL-CIO
• David Jenkins ’53, P'78,'81,'83, GP’15 LHD, Trustee Emeritus
• Stuart Levy, ScD, Microbiologist
• Sonny Rollins, DFA, Jazz Composer
• Caroline Walker Bynum, LittD, Historian, Medieval Scholar
• Oprah Winfrey, Media Executive and Philanthropist

1997

• Katharina (Kay) Butterfield, LHD, Wife of Wesleyan President
• Sir Frank Kermode, LittD, Scholar & Literary Critic
• Bernard Knox, LittD, Classicist and Scholar
• Jonathan Kozol, LHD, Activist, Teacher, Author
• Georges May, LittD, Scholar & Author, French Literary Critic
• Elizabeth Morgan, LHD, Board of Ed, Community Leader
• Paul Simon, LLD, Former US Senator
  
• Anna Deavere Smith, DFA, Actress, Teacher, Playwright and Performer
• John Woodhouse ’53, LHD, Chairman of Sysco Corp

1996

• A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., LLD, Retired Federal Judge
  
• Jay A. Levy ’60, ScD, Virologist and Researcher, University of CA
• Jessye Norman, DFA, International Concert Artist
• Nell Irvin Painter, LittD, Professor of American History, Princeton University
• John C. Sawhill, ScD, President and CEO, Nature Conservancy

1995

• Merce Cunningham, DFA, Dancer
• Paula Giddings, LHD, Journalist, African American Activist
• Amartya Kumar Sen, P'99, LHD, Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Lamont U
• Charles Sumner Stone Jr. ’48, LittD, Journalist and Civil Rights Activist
  
• Torsten N. Wiesel, ScD, Neuroscientist, Nobel Prize/ Medicine

1994

• Douglas J. Bennet Jr. ’59, P’87, ’94, LLD, Asst. Secy./State, Former President of NPR
• Johnnetta Betsch Cole, LLD, President, Spelman College
• Satoshi Omura, ScD, Pres. Kitasato Inst., Tokyo
• Lowell P. Weicker Jr., LLD, Governor of CT
  

1993

• Peter Brown, LittD, Professor of History, Princeton
• Gordon P. Eaton ’51, ScD, Dir, Columbia University Lamont Doherty Observatory
• Houghton Freeman ’43, P’77, LLD, Freeman Foundation, Trustee Emeritus
• Paul Monette, LittD, Author, Poet
• Cornel West, LittD, Professor of Religion, Dir. Afro-American Studies, Princeton
  

1992

• John Wyllys Baird ’38, P'69, '78, LLD, Trustee
• Roy R. DeCarava, DFA, Photographer
• Morris Seligman Dees Jr., LLD, Exec Dir. and Chief Trial Counsel, Southern Proverty Law Ctr
  
• Carol Gilligan, LHD, Author, Professor of Education, Harvard
• Leroy E. Hood, P'92, ScD, Biologist/ Dir Nat'l Science Foundation and Technology Center
• Martin Charles Scorsese, P'98, DFA, Film Director

1991

• Corinne Claiborne Boggs, LLD, Fmr Congresswoman
  
• Gwendolyn Brooks, LittD, Pulitzer Prize Poet
• James Pierpont Comer, LHD, Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale
• Charles Erroll Exley ’51, P'83, GP’00, ’15, LLD, President and CEO, NCR Corp.
• Quincy Jones, DFA, Musician, Composer, Grammy Awardee
• Brenda Atkinson Milner, ScD, Professor of Psychology, McGill U
• Alyce Faye Wattleton, LLD, Pres. of Planned Parenthood

1990

• Berenice Abbott, DFA, Photographer
• Jonathan Demme, DFA, Filmmaker
• Seamus Heaney, LittD, Poet
• Herbert D. Kelleher ’53, LLD, President and CEO, Southwest Airlines
• Oscar Lanford ’60, ScD, Mathematician
• Desmond Tutu, Doctor of Divinity, Archbishop, Nobel Laureate/ Peace Prize
  

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1980s

1989 Inauguration of William Chace

• Colin G. Campbell, LLD, President Emeritus, Wesleyan
• Frank Oakley, LLD, President, Williams College
• Peter Pouncey, LLD, President, Amherst College

1989

• John R. Jakobson ’52, P'05, LLD, Trustee Emeritus
• Paul C. Lauterbur, ScD, Chemist
• Nathan A. Scott Jr., LHD, Clergyman, Literary Critic
• Marian Wright Edelman, LLD, President, Children's Defense Fund
  

1988

• Gerald Lee Baliles ’63, LLD, Governor of VA
• Robert M. Ball ’35, MA'36, P'65, LLD, Former Commissioner, Social Security
• D. Ronald Daniel ’52, P'77, '82, '94, LHD, Businessman/ Trustee Emeritus
• Sandra M. Gilbert, LittD, Professor of English, Princeton
• Max Helmut Reihlen ’55, ScD, Dir. Deutsches Institute fur Normung
• William Zinsser, P'80, GP’17, LittD, Writer/ Editor
  

1987

• Bruce Corwin ’62, LLD, Civic Leader
• William Cosby Jr., P'87, LHD, Entertainer [revoked, 2018]
  
• Jim Dine, GP’09, DFA, Artist
• A. LeRoy Greason ’44, LittD, President, Bowdoin College
• Ellen A. Peters, LLD, Judge
• Robert Wilson, ScD, Physicist
• Ezra Zilkha ’47, P'73,'81, GP’10, ’10, ’16, LLD, Businessman/ Trustee Emeritus

1986

• Carlo De Benedetti, P'85, LLD, Businessman
• David Hays, Doctor of Arts, Founder, National Theater of the Deaf
• Nannerl Keohane, LLD, President, Wellesley College
• Jehan Sadat, LHD, Educator, Social Activist
  

1986 Rededication of Olin Library

• Daniel Boorstin, LittD, Librarian of Congress
• Robert S. Cohen ’43, LittD, Trustee Emeritus
• Richard W. Couper, LLD, Trustee Emeritus
• Bern Dibner, ScD, Businessman and Collector
• John P. McDonald, LLD, Librarian

1985

• Reginald Bartholomew, LLD, Diplomat
• Frank G. Binswanger Sr., P'50,'54, GP’76, ’78, ’83, ’83, LLD, Businessman
• Maxwell Roach, P'93, DFA, Musician
• Cicely Tyson, DFA, Actress
  

1984

• Natalie Zemon Davis, LittD, Professor of History, Princeton
• Edward M. Kennedy, P'84, '08, LLD, Senator
• David G. McCullough, LittD, Author
  
• Nicholas J. Turro Jr. ’60, ScD, Professor of Chemistry, Columbia University
• Walter B. Wriston ’41, LLD, Chairman, Citicorp

1983

• Alan Alda, P'83, DFA, Actor
• Harvey B. Gram Jr. ’27, GP’83, LHD, Businessman
• Terry J. Hatter Jr. ’54, P'92, LLD, Federal Judge
  
• Yoshinori Matsuyama, LLD, Educator
• Toni Morrison, LittD., Author
• Frederick Mosteller, ScD, Academician

1982

• John J. Driscoll ’33, MA '34, P'69, LHD, Labor Leader
• Carlos Fuentes, LHD, Author
  
• Earl G. Graves, LLD, Businessman
• Meg Greenfield, LittD, Writer
• Grace Paley, LittD, Writer
• Maarten Schmidt, ScD, Astronomer
• Robert M.  Solow, LLD, Economist

1981

• Frank Capra, DFA, Director/ Producer
• David Halberstam, LittD, Author, Journalist
  
• Louisa Kennedy, LHD, Founder of FLAG
• Max Tishler, GGP’14, ScD, Emeritus Professor of Science, Wesleyan

1981: Sesquicentennial Convocation (September)

• Mildred Dunnock Urmy DFA, actress
  
• John W. Bodine, P'69, '76, GP '96, ’02, '03, '19, LLD, attorney, Wesleyan trustee
• Elbert K. Fretwell Jr. '44, P'79, LLD, Chancellor, University of North Carolina
• Gerald Holton '41, MA'42, P'77, LittD, historian of science at Harvard
• Robert A. Rosenbaum, LittD Wesleyan University Professor of Mathematics and Sciences

1980

• Philip B. Brown ’44, P'83, LHD, Lawyer, Chair, Wesleyan Board
• Jill K. Conway, LLD, President, Smith College
• Ralph W. Ellison, LittD, Novelist, Essayist
• Louis E. Martin, LLD, Journalist/ Government Service
• Jean Francois-Poncet ’47, LLD, Foreign Minister of France
  

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1970s

1979

• Mansfield Freeman ’16, P'43, LLD, Businessman and Teacher
• Ella Grasso, LLD, Governor
  
• Henry Russell Hitchcock Jr., LHD, Architectural History
• Elie Wiesel, LHD, Author, Nobel Laureate

1978

• John Chandler '78, LLD, President, Williams
• Robert Coles, LHD, Psychiatrist
  
• Alan Shestack ’60, DFA, Dir. of Yale Art Gallery
• Harold Stearns ’21, ScD, Geologist
• Harold Syrett ’35, LLD, Editor of Hamilton Papers

1977

• Vernon E. Jordan, LLD, Exec Dir Natl Urban League
  
• John U. Monro, LHD, Dean of Freshman, Miles College
• Maxine  Singer, ScD, National Institute of Health
• John W. Ward '63, LLD, President, Amherst
• Richard P. Wilbur, MA '58, LittD, Poet

Honorary Degrees Were Not Awarded Between 1972 and 1976

1976

• John William Ward ’63, President, Amherst College
  

1975

• Willard M. Wallace ’34, Wesleyan professor

1974

• Pauline Kael, Movie Critic

1973

• John W. Macy, Jr. ’38, P’75, ’78, ’84, Chairman, U.S. Civil Service, Wesleyan Trustee

1972

• Carl E. Schorske, P’81, Former Professor, Wesleyan

1971

• Robert Anderson, LLD, Chair of Board, Atlantic Richfield
• Kingman Brewster Jr., LHD, President of Yale
  
• Charles Gillispie ’40, ScD, Professor of History, Princeton
• Martha Graham, DFA, Dancer
• Joseph Melnick ’36, GP’90, ScD, Professor of Virology, Baylor Univ.
• George Wiley '44, LHD, Exec Dir., National Welfare Rights Organization

1970

• John Holt, Activist and Author
• Harold Hugo, Doctor of Humanities, President, Meriden Gravure
• Theodore Lockwood, LHD, Presiident, Trinity College
• Roger Tory Peterson, ScD, Ornithologist
• Robert Penn Warren, LittD., Author and Pulitzer Prize Winner
• Andrew Young, DD, Minister, Exec VP SCLC

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1960s

1969

• Julian Bond, LLD, Georgia House of Representatives
  
• Art  Buchwald, LittD, Newspaper Columnist and Cartoonist
• William P. Haas, DD, President, Providence College
• Burton C. Hallowell ’36, MA’38, LHD, President, Tufts, Former Wesleyan Exec VP
• Lelan F. Sillin Jr., P'77, LLD, President of Northeast Utilities
• Stewart L. Udall, LLD, Former Secretary of the Interior

1968

• John C. Bennett, DD, Pres. Union Theological
• Leonard Bernstein, DFA, Conductor
  
• John W. Gardner, LHD, Chair, Urban Coalition, Former Secretary, HEW
• Murray Gell-Man, ScD, Professor of Physics, Cal Tech
• Joseph Palamountain Jr., LHD, President, Skidmore
• John R. Reitemeyer, LLD, President and Publisher, Hartford Courant
• Charles E. Shain, LHD, President, Connecticut College
• Monroe E. Spaght, LLD, Chair of Board, Shell Oil

1967

• Norman O. Brown, LittD, Former Wesleyan Professor
• Victor L. Butterfield, President of Wesleyan
  
• Harry Caplan, LittD, Professor of Classical Language and Literature, Cornell
• Gilbert H. Clee ’35, LLD, Dir., McKinsey & Co.
• Emilio Q. Daddario ’39, ScD, Congressman
• René J. Dubos, ScD, Bacteriologist, Author
• John W. Macy Jr. ’38, P’75, ’78, ’84, LLD, Chairman, US Civil Service, Trustee
• Frederick B. Millett ’65, Litt. D, Professor of English, Emeritus
• Carl E. Schorske, P’81, LittD, Former Professor, Wesleyan

1966

• William Sloane Coffin Jr., DD, Chaplain Yale
• Henry Hamill Fowler, LLD, Secretary of Treasury
  
• Justin McCortney O'Brien, LittD, Author, Educator
• Richard Perkin, ScD, President, Perkin-Elmer Co.

1965

• Edwin D. Etherington ’48, P'84, LLD, Pres., American Stock Exchange
• Francis Keppel, LLD, Commissioner of Education
  
• James K. Mathews, DD, Methodist Bishop
• Michael Polyani, LLD, Political Economist

1964

• Mary I. Bunting (Smith), LLD, President, Radcliffe
• Martin Luther King Jr., DD, Civil Rights Leader
• Harry F. Lewis ’12, MS'13, LLD, VP, Institute for Paper Chemistry
• Dwight Macdonald, LittD, Arts Critic
• R. Sargent Shriver Jr., LLD, Director of Peace Corps
  

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