CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Four people have been chosen to receive honorary degrees during the 139th commencement of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on May 16 at the Assembly Hall, 1800 S. First St., Champaign.
The speaker has not been announced.
The honorary-degree recipients:
Erich Bloch, director, The Washington Advisory Group; former director, National Science Foundation: the honorary degree of doctor of engineering.
Bloch served as the director of the NSF from 1984-1990 and oversaw the foundation’s $3 billion annual budget and the award of 12,000-14,000 research grants in natural, physical and social sciences, education and engineering. Currently, as a director of The Washington Advisory Group, he advises on corporate research and development management and strategic planning for academically based research enterprises and other not-for-profit organizations. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology and is a recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Founders Medal, the NSF’s Vannevar Bush Award, and the National Academy of Engineering’s Arthur M. Bueche Award. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, the Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, a Fellow of IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a foreign member of the Engineering Academy of Japan.
Betty Chan Po-king, the chairman of the board of directors of the Yew Chung Education Foundation: the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters.
Chan has been a pioneer in early childhood education in China as well as internationally.
Chan earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education at the University of Hawaii and later completed her doctorate in child development and early childhood education at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She has been influential in the establishment of schools in Hong Kong and China. She took over directing a school in Hong Kong that was established by the Yew Chung Education Foundation and founded in 1932 by Chan’s mother, Madame Tsang Chor-hang. The school has been open continuously since its founding, except for the period during the Japanese occupation. Chan served as a consultant in the establishment of early childhood programs at the Hong Kong Institute of Education that is an amalgamation of various colleges of education.
Richard M. Felder, professor emeritus, chemical engineering, North Carolina State University: the honorary degree of doctor of engineering.
Felder is known for his groundbreaking contributions to engineering education and engineering education research. He is widely known within the chemical engineering discipline for “Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes,” a book that has been a fixture in undergraduate chemical engineering curricula for decades. Felder is the author of more than 200 published articles on engineering and science education. He was selected as a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and received the Warren K. Lewis Award for Contributions to Chemical Engineering Education from the American Institute for Chemical Engineering. He also received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Pedagogical Scholarship from the American Society for Engineering Education.
Arnold L. Mitchem, president, Council for Opportunity in Education: the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters.
Mitchem began his career on the history faculty at Marquette University and in 1969 was named the director of the Educational Opportunity Program at Marquette. In 1986 he moved to Washington, D.C., to become the president of the Council for Opportunity in Education. He has been a voice for low-income, first-generation students and individuals with disabilities and a champion for improving access and opportunity in education. Because of his work, TRIO Programs have expanded by nearly 400 percent and now serve more than 872,000 students at 1,200 colleges and universities. Mitchem is a member of the executive committee of the European Access Network as well as a former trustee of the College Board, and past president of the Committee for Education Funding, a Washington-based coalition of national education associations.
This article was imported from a previous version of the News Bureau website. Please email news@illinois.edu to report missing photos and/or photo credits.
