Five to get honorary degrees

Drawing from the pinnacle of achievement in fields as varied as pediatrics, human rights journalism, music, technology transfer and law, the University of Wisconsin–Madison will confer five honorary degrees Friday, May 17.

This year’s recipients are:

Lewis Barness, on the Medical School faculty from 1987-93, is recognized as the world’s leading expert in metabolic diseases affecting children. His landmark publications have enhanced substantially our understanding of the relationship between nutrition and both genetic and acquired metabolic disorders. As a direct result of his work, infant formula manufacturers now include supplements in their products to help guard against deficiencies. Known around the world as an advocate for children’s health, Barness has held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of South Florida.

Ruth Gruber, witness to and chronicler of pivotal events of the 20th century. A distinguished international correspondent, Gruber was the first journalist to enter the Gulag in the Soviet Arctic in 1939. A decade later, she was reporting about the struggle to form Israel. Director Otto Preminger based his film “Exodus” in part on her accounts. During the second World War, she not only recorded but orchestrated the rescue of nearly 1,000 Jews from Hitler’s Germany. They were resettled in Oswego, N.Y., despite the United States’ policy of granting no asylum to refugees from Nazi Germany. Her 1984 book “Haven” describes these events. The book was made into a television mini-series in 2001, and Gruber appeared in one of the crowd scenes. She spent 1930-31 at UW on a LaFrentz Fellowship.

John Harbison, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer whose musical canon includes the two-act opera “The Great Gatsby” (1999); the ballet “Ulysses” (1983); the cantata “The Flight into Egypt” (1987), which won Harbison his Pulitzer; the choral work “Four Psalms” (1998), commemorating Israel’s 50th anniversary; “Emerson” (1995), commissioned by the UW–Madison School of Music on its 100th anniversary; and many more.

Other commissions have come from Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the Chicago and Boston Symphonies, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Emerson String Quartet, among others. A founder of and regular contributor to the Token Creek Music Festival, Harbison holds a MacArthur Fellowship, the Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities, the Harvard Arts Medal and a Friedheim First Award from the Kennedy Center, among others.

Norman J. Latker, whose efforts brought about the passage of patent legislation which allows public universities like UW–Madison to transfer crucial technologies to the private sector.

Known as the “Bayh-Dole Act,” the 1980 legislation is considered pivotal in making possible the transfer of basic research findings to commercial applications. Before this advancement, all federally funded inventions were placed in the public domain. A wide range of start-up companies has benefited from universities’ ownership of intellectual property generated through the federal grant support. Research has, too: Across the country, universities have applied the revenue from their patents to expand research.

Latker also was instrumental in developing the predecessor of the Bayh-Dole Act. As patent counsel for the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, he was instrumental in establishing institutional patent agreements (IPAs). They allowed individual institutions to manage intellectual property generated under federal support. By encouraging entrepreneurship in universities and federal laboratories, Latker helped them realize their full potential and has contributed extensively to the global economy and welfare of its citizens.

David S. Ruder, chair of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission between 1987-89. Ruder, who graduated from the Law School in 1957, has influenced substantially the legal system under which American capital markets must operate. After leaving the SEC, Ruder has continued to play a vital role in the development of global standards for capital market activity. Currently the William W. Gurley Memorial Professor of Law at Northwestern University, Ruder also is president of Northwestern’s Corporate Counsel Center, which sponsors legal research and offers continuing educational opportunities for corporate counsel. In addition, he chairs of the Mutual Fund Directors Education Council, and the Board of Trustees of the SEC Historical Society, and is in leadership positions in many other organizations. Between 1994-97 he served as chairman of the UW–Madison Law School Capital Campaign, which raised $6.6 million to assist in remodeling the Law School building on Bascom Hill.

Honorary degrees will be awarded Friday, May 17, at 5:30 p.m. in the Kohl Center. Doctoral and professional degrees will be awarded at that ceremony as well. Bachelor’s and master’s degrees will be awarded at ceremonies Saturday and Sunday, May 18-19.