Honorary Degrees

DATE	NAME	DEGREE	NOTES
1986	Roy Taylor	Doctor of Laws	Congressman Roy Taylor is one of UNCA's most notable alumni. See also the Roy Taylor Collection and Taylor, Roy in University Archives Vertical File, Alumni
	Merrimon Cuninggim	Doctor of Laws
	Sarah Belk Gambrell	Doctor of Humane Letters

1987	Virginia Bryan Schreiber	Doctor of Humane Letters
	John Marsden Ehle, Jr.	Doctor of Humane Letters

1988	Fred Chappell	Doctor of Humane Letters	Western North Carolina author of 6 novels, eleven volumes of poetry, and essays that have appeared in dozens of journals and magazines.
	Robert Gale	Doctor of Laws	President of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges and former President of Carleton College. Served as director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, director of recruiting and public affairs for the Peace Corps, consultant for Special Olympics, Inc. and on the executive committee of the United Negro College Fund and director of CARE, Inc.
	Ernest Mills	Doctor of Laws	Vital part of the universityy's liberal arts vision for the past two decades. The principal owner of Mills Manufacturing Company in Asheville. Endowed the Mills Professorship Fund in the Humanities and the Mills Scholarship Fund. Former Foundation Board member.

1989	Walt W. Rostow	Doctor of Humane Letters	Formerly deputy special assistant for National Security Affairs in the Kennedy administration. Special assistant to President Lyndon Johnso for National Security Affairs. Member of the Kennedy-Johnson braintrust for nearly a decade. Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate degree from Yale in 1940, he has taught at Columbia, Oxford and Cambridge and MIT.
	Russell Edgerton	Doctor of Humane Letters	President of the American Association for Higher Education. Special assistant for HEW and assisted in the formation of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.
	John M. Reynolds	Doctor of Laws	Nephew of A.C. Reynolds, the first president of Biltmore College. As a trustee he helped to negotiate the move from the Seely Castle site to University Heights. Former member of the State Board of Education for16 years.

1990	Gail Godwin	Doctor of Humane Letters	Author and Asheville native. Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the 1981 award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
	Arnold Kimsey King	Doctor of Humane Letters	In 1964 was named director of UNC Institutional Research. Interim Chancellor for William Highsmith in 1977. Historian for the UNC system.
	Eugene Pleasants Odum	Doctor of Humane Letters	Is referred to as the "Father of modern ecology." Wrote The Fundamentals of Ecology, 1953. Founded the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia. Recipient of the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

1991	Jason McManus	[No degree specified]	The fourth editor-in-chief in Time, Inc.'s 68 year history following Henry R. Luce, Hedley Donovan and Henry A Grunwald, he is well known for his strong leadership and forceful analysis.

1992	Missing

1993	Missing

1994	Dudley Flood	[No degree specified]	Executive Director of the North Carolina Association of School Administrators.
	Rodrigo Borja	[No degree specified]	Former President of the Republic of Ecuador from 1988-1992. He holds a master's degree in political science and doctor of law degree from the Central University of Quito, Ecuador.

1995	Irwin Belk	[No degree specified]	Principal in the Belk Stores organization, is a leading figure of the NC business community. For 16 years was a member of the UNC Board of Governors.

1996	Charles Kuralt	[No degree specified]
	Morris and Leah Karpen	[No degree specified]	Civic leaders of Asheville.

1997	James R. Schlesinger	Doctor of Laws	Senior advisor to the investment banking firm of Lehman Brothers, chairman of the board of trustees of MITRE Corporation and counselor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University.
	Wilma Dykeman Stokely	Doctor of Humane Letters	One of the leading authors of Appalachian fiction and non-fiction, and a graduate of UNCA's predecessor institution, Biltmore College, in 1938.
	Claudio Malo Gonzalez	Doctor of Humane Letters
*1998	Chambers
	Bushey, Glen
*1999	Missing

2000	William Friday	[No degree specified]
	Roy Carroll	[No degree specified]
	Girard Etzkorn	[No degree specified]
	Cynthia Ozick	[No degree specified]
	William Raspberry	[No degree specified]

2001

2002	Tom Fazio	[No degree specified]
	Muriel Siebert	[No degree specified]
	Edward Villela	[No degree specified]
	LeRoy T. Walker	[No degree specified]
2003

2004

2005	William Ivey Long	[No degree specified]	The following is a transcription of the dedication poster, which is which located in OS UA: "New York costume designer William Ivey Long is a native North Carolinian whose designs for many of Broadway's most popular musicals have won him four Tony Awards and seven nominations. Long has six shows currently running on Broadway: Sweet Charity, A Streetcar Named Desire, La Cage aux Folles, Hairspray, The Producers, and Chicago. "In 1990, the College of William and Mary presented Long with the Leslie Cheek Award for Outstanding Presentation in the Arts and with an honorary doctorate in 2004. The National Theatre Conference named him Person of the Year in 2000, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago presented him with the Legend of Fashion Award in 2003. Long is also the recipient of North Carolina's highest civilian honor, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. "Long majored in history at the College of William and Mary, was a fellow in art history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then pursued an M.F.A. in stage design at Yale University Drama School." --author unknown
	Martha Nussbaum	[No degree specified]	The following is a transcription of the dedication poster, which is which located in OS UA: "Martha Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago Law School, is a leader in the field of the humanities. Having taught at Harvard, Brown, Stanford and Oxford universities, she currently holds appointments in the University of Chicago's Law School, Philosophy Department and Divinity School. She has written or edited more than 20 books, including Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, for which she received several awards. "One of three national presidents of the Ame4ican Philosophical Association in 1999-200, Nussbaum also has been a member of the Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies and an academician in the Academy of Finland. She earned a bachelor's degree from New York University and both master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University." --author unknown
	Amanda Swimmer	[No degree specified]	The following is a transcription of the dedication poster, which is which located in OS UA: "Amanda Swimmer, one of the best-known Cherokee potters, works in a tradition that was almost lost during the 19th-century Cherokee removal to Oklahoma. Using the traditional techniques of her ancestors, she has never worked on a potter's wheel. "Recipient of the 1994 North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, Swimmer also has won first-place prizes at the annual Cherokee Fall Festival, which exhibits the traditional arts, craft and lifestyle of the Eastern Ban d of Cherokee. Examples of her pottery, including her favorites - wedding vases and animal bowls - are on display in Washington, New Mexico and Raleigh, as well as Qualla Arts and Crafts in Cherokee. "Swimmer has taught pottery making at Cherokee Elementary School, passing the tradition on to the younger generation, and throughout Western North Carolina including the John C. Campbell Folk School, and at several colleges in Georgia. Dedicated to passing along her skills to others, Swimmer says, 'I always think about my old ancestors and that I ought to just keep going and keep making pottery and teaching others to make pottery.'"--author unknown