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Hank Aaron, Betty Friedan Among
Tufts Honorary Degree Recipients Medford/Somerville, Mass. – Last week Tufts announced the honorary degree recipients for the 2000 commencement ceremony. Baseball legend Henry “Hank” Aaron, women’s activist Betty Friedan, Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Ismar Schorsch, and Dr. Merrill Goldstein, will all receive degrees. The honorees join Bill Cosby, the main commencement speaker, during the 144th commencement ceremony on May 21.
Dr.
Merrill Goldstein is the only one of the four honorary degree recipients
who attended Tufts, although he never received an undergraduate
degree. In 1944, at the height of US involvement in WWII, Dr. Goldstein
was an undergraduate student at Tufts and enlisted in the Navy V-12
program. Due to his acceptance into Tufts Medical School, the Navy
saw him an asset and actually assigned him off to work in a naval
hospital before receiving any medical training. At the end of his
service, Dr. Goldstein returned to Boston and enrolled in Tufts’
medical school in 1948, where he successfully graduated in 1948.
Since then, Dr. Goldstein has had an exceptional medical career
as a pulmonologist and has spent the last 14 years affiliated with
the New England Medical Center. Although his undergraduate education
was cut short by World War II, Goldstein will return to the Hill
to receive a much deserved honorary degree.
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Hank
Aaron rewrote baseball’s hitting record during his 23-year career
in the major leagues. Following the example of Jackie Robinson,
who broke through the game’s color barriers, he became part of the
early generation of African-American major league baseball players.
He went on to set more batting records than any other player in
the game’s history, including most lifetime homeruns (755), and
most runs batted in a lifetime, (2,297). Aaron was inducted into
the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982.
Betty
Friedan, the world’s foremost spokesperson for women’s rights, is
credited with sparking the women’s movement. Her 1963 book, The
Feminine Mystique, sent shock waves around the country and changed
cultural perceptions for women and their role in society. She is
also the founder of NOW, the National Organization of Women, and
the National Women’s Political Caucus. Friedan continues to write
and speak around the world on women’s continual struggle for equality
and fulfillment in careers and family. Her memoir, Life so Far,
will be published in May.
Dr.
Ismar Schorsch is the sixth chancellor of the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America in New York City-- the spiritual and academic
center of Conservative Judaism. Dr. Schorsch has worked for over
a decade as its Chancellor to convey his vision of Conservative
Judaism and has fought to expand the rights and religious identity
of Conservative Jews in Israel. He has also worked alongside Vice
President Al Gore to create the National Religious Partnership for
the Environment, which succeeded in using moral influence to effect
positive change in the environment.
