The University of Oslo (UiO) has awarded 17 honorary doctorate degrees as part of its 200th anniversary celebrations, which are being held all year long but climaxed late last week and over the weekend.
“Honorary doctorates expand the university, they strengthen the University of Oslo’s place in the international, academic community,” Dean Ole Petter Ottersen told newspaper Aftenposten over the weekend. That’s when the university held an “open house” in many of its most historic buildings including its Aula auditorium, decorated with art by Edvard Munch.
The honorary doctorates also firm up ties to other universities, noted Ottersen, who hosted the formal and ceremonial awarding of the doctorates with an academic procession in robes.
Among those awarded with honorary degrees was Fred Kavli, the Norwegian physicist who emigrated to the US, earned a fortune in business and became a California-based philanthropist who, among other things, funded the prestigious Kavli Awards that are announced in Oslo. Kavli also has donated large funds to Norwegian research in recent years.
“We’re very grateful for his support and happy to have him among our honorary doctors,” Ottersen told Aftenposten. “The university competes in a global market of knowledge where private sources are important to create fertile grounds for the highest levels of research. Quality research at a high level costs money, lots of money.” Other honorary doctors are controversial and spark debate because of their views. Ottersen thinks that’s also important.
The 17 honorary doctorates were conferred last week to:
Professor Christoph Markschies, Humboldt University, Germany
Professor Lars Björne, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
Professor Boel Flodgren, Lund University, Sweden
Professor Eugene Braunwald, Harvard Medical School, USA
Professor Jean Claude Mbanya, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon
Professor Donna Haraway, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Professor Quentin Skinner, University of London, England
Physicist and businessman Fred Kavli, The Kavli Foundation, USA
Professor Richard Dawkins, University of Oxford, England
Professor Jacob Martien ten Cate, Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Professor David Orlinsky, University of Chicago, USA
Professor Debraj Ray, New York University, USA
Professor Anne Edwards, University of Oxford, England
Professor Kristian Kristiansen, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Dr. Vandana Shiva, Institute of Science og Institute of Management, Bangalore, India
Professor Linda Alcoff, Hunter College of The City University of New York, USA
Professor Ada Yonath, Department of Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
