This List of University of Maryland, Baltimore County Honorary Degree Recipients includes those persons who have been recognized by UMBC for outstanding achievements in their fields that reflect the ideals and uphold the purposes of the university, and to whom the university faculty has voted to award honorary degrees in recognition of such attainments. Many of the individuals below are also speakers during the university's commencement ceremonies.
The following are recipients of honorary degrees from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, beginning in 1970: [1]
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2014
2015
Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a professor of the practice of the humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Shirley Marie Tilghman, is a Canadian scholar in molecular biology and an academic administrator. She is now a professor of molecular biology and public policy and president emerita of Princeton University. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Catonsville, Maryland named after Baltimore County. It had a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs and the first university research park in Maryland. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity".
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases honoris causa or ad honorem . The degree is typically a doctorate or, less commonly, a master's degree, and may be awarded to someone who has no prior connection with the academic institution or no previous postsecondary education. An example of identifying a recipient of this award is as follows: Doctorate in Business Administration (Hon. Causa).
David Salzer Broder was an American journalist, writing for The Washington Post for over 40 years. He was also an author, television news show pundit, and university lecturer.
Mary Sue Wilson Coleman is an American chemist and academic administrator who served as the 13th president of the University of Michigan from 2002 to 2014, interim president of the University of Michigan in 2022, and the 18th president of the University of Iowa from 1995 to 2002.
Vartan Gregorian was an Armenian-American academic, educator, and historian. He served as president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1997 to 2021.
Doctor of Letters also termed "Doctor of Literature" in some countries is a terminal degree in the arts, humanities and social sciences that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor of Science or Doctor of Laws (LL.D). It is awarded in many countries by universities in recognition of superior accomplishment in the Arts, Social Sciences or humanities, such as original contributions to the creative or cultural arts, or scholarship in Social Sciences and humanities and other merits. It may be conferred as an earned degree upon the completion of a regular doctoral course of study, usually including the development and defense of an original dissertation, or may be conferred as an earned higher doctorate after the submission and academic evaluation of a portfolio of sustained scholarship, publications, research, or other scientific work of the highest caliber.
David Levering Lewis is an American historian, a Julius Silver University Professor, and professor emeritus of history at New York University. He is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, for part one and part two of his biography of W. E. B. Du Bois. He is the first author to win Pulitzer Prizes for biography for two successive volumes on the same subject.
Norman Christopher Francis is a retired African-American academic who served as president of Xavier University of Louisiana from 1968 to 2015. He was the first Black and first lay president of the school, and the second African American to ever serve as president of a Catholic university in the United States.
Carla Diane Hayden is an American librarian who is serving as the 14th librarian of Congress. Since the creation of the office of the librarian of Congress in 1802, Hayden is both the first African American and the first woman to hold this post. Appointed in 2016, she is the first professional librarian to hold the post since 1974.
Ronald Gordon Ehrenberg is an American economist. He has primarily worked in the field of labor economics including the economics of higher education. Currently, he is Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University. He is also the founder-director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI).
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) features a variety of research centers and institutes both based on the campus and affiliated with other academic institutions. These centers and institutes listed below seek out to expand their research, educate, and promote partnerships between the university and the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area and beyond.
Emilie Maureen Townes is an American Christian social ethicist and theologian. She is currently Dean and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Townes was the first African-American woman to be elected president of the American Academy of Religion in 2008 and served as president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2012–2016.
