Glittering prizes

March 31, 2000

The Templeton Foundation in New York has announced that it will award the Templeton prize for progress in religion to the physicist Freeman J. Dyson. The award is given for originality in advancing understanding of God or spirituality.

Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, is to receive a degree of doctor of civil law from Oxford University, subject to approval by Congregation.

The University of Cambridge is to award honorary degrees to: Peter Beckwith, chairman of PMB Holdings and member of the Guild of Benefactors; Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, Lord Justice of Appeal; Eddie George, governor of the Bank of England; Brenda Milner, professor of psychology at McGill University; Elias Corey, professor of chemistry at Harvard University; Gudev Khush, principal plant breeder at the International Rice Institute in the Philippines; Sir Denis Rooke, former chairman of British Gas; Tom Stoppard, playwright and novelist, and Alexander Goehr, composer.

The University of Salford has conferred honorary degrees of doctor of letters on the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor and Keith Wilson, former dean of the faculty of media, music and performance. David Wilmot, chief constable of Greater Manchester, received an honorary doctorate of science.

Upendra Baxi, professor in the school of law at Warwick University, has been awarded an honorary LLD from the University of La Trobe, Melbourne.

Beryl Gilroy, the first British-Guyanese female teacher in London, and Donald Woods, former editor of the South African Daily Dispatch, have been made honorary fellows of the Institute of Education.

Queen's University, Belfast will award honorary degrees to: Baroness Blood, founding member of the Women's Coalition in Northern Ireland; Averil Cameron, warden of Keble College, Oxford; Garret FitzGerald, former taoiseach and chancellor of the University of Ireland; Peter Fitzgerald, founder of Randox Laboratories; John F Fulton, professor emeritus at Queen's; Sir John Keegan, military historian; James Kincade, former headmaster of Methodist College; Neal Lane, assistant to the president of the United States for science and technology and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the US; Inez MacCormack, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions; John B. McGuckian, chairman of UTV; Clare Macmahon, former chairman of the Fire Authority for Northern Ireland; John McWhirter, deputy chief scientific officer at the Defence Evaluation Research Agency; Helen Magaw, crystallographer; Rabbi Julia Neuberger; Michael Palin, actor; Noel Stewart, former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland; John Toland, chair of mathematical sciences at the University of Bath; and Judith Weir, composer.

Edwin Morgan, poet laureate of Glasgow, is to receive a doctorate of letters from the University of St Andrews.

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