History and Traditions

Named for John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, Wesleyan University is among the oldest of the originally Methodist institutions of higher education in the United States. It’s first class, a group of 48 men, met their three professors, a tutor, and the college president for their first day of classes in September of 1831. The Methodist movement emphasized the value of social service and education, and from its inception, Wesleyan offered a liberal arts program rather than theological training.

Wesleyan has been known for curricular innovations since its founding. At a time when classical studies dominated the American college curriculum, emulating the European model, President Fisk sought to put modern languages, literature, and natural sciences on an equal footing with the classics. When Judd Hall, now home to the Psychology Department, was built in 1870, it was one of the first American college buildings designed to be dedicated wholly to scientific study. Since the 1860s, Wesleyan’s faculty has focused on original research and publication in addition to teaching.

The earliest Wesleyan students were all male, primarily Methodist, and almost exclusively white. From 1872 to 1912, Wesleyan was a pioneer in the field of coeducation, admitting a limited number of women to earn degrees alongside the male students. Coeducation temporarily succumbed to the pressure of male alumni. In 1911, some of Wesleyan’s alumnae helped found the Connecticut College for Women in New London to help fill the void left when Wesleyan closed its doors to women.

During the 1960s, Wesleyan began actively to recruit students of color. Wesleyan faculty, students, and staff were active in the civil rights movement, and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. visited campus several times. By 1968, women were again admitted as exchange or transfer students. In 1970, the first female students were admitted to Wesleyan’s freshman class since 1909. The return of coeducation heralded a dramatic expansion in the size of the student body, and gender parity was achieved within several years.

Early ties to the Methodist church waned in the 20th century, and Wesleyan became fully independent of the Methodist church in 1937. Wesleyan’s first non-Methodist faculty member was Woodrow Wilson—later our 28th President of the United States. Under the leadership of university president Victor L. Butterfield between 1943 to 1967, interdisciplinary study flourished. The Center for Advanced Studies (now the Center for the Humanities) brought to campus outstanding scholars and public figures who worked closely with both faculty and students. Graduate Liberal Studies, founded in 1953, is the oldest program of its kind. In this same period, the undergraduate interdisciplinary programs, the College of Letters and College of Social Studies were inaugurated. Wesleyan’s model program in world music, or ethnomusicology, also dates from this period. Doctoral programs in the sciences and ethnomusicology were instituted in the early 1960s.

Wesleyan’s facilities expanded during this time as well, with new interdisciplinary centers developed to house programs that were gaining an international reputation for excellence.

The Center for African American Studies, which grew out of the African American Institute (founded in 1969), was established in 1974. The Center for the Arts, home of the University’s visual and performance arts departments and performance series, was designed by prominent architects Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo and opened in the fall of 1973. The Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies was established in 1987. The Center for Film Studies, with state-of-the-art projection and production facilities, opened in 2004.

An addition of the Freeman Athletic Center opened in 2005 with the 1,200-seat Silloway Gymnasium for basketball and volleyball, the 7,500-square-foot Andersen Fitness Center, and the Rosenbaum Squash Center with eight courts. Fall of 2007 marked the opening of the Suzanne Lemberg Usdan University Center and the adjacent renovated Fayerweather building, which retains the towers of the original Fayerweather structure as part of its façade. The Usdan Center overlooks Andrus Field, College Row, and Olin Library and houses dining facilities for students and faculty, seminar and meeting spaces, the Wesleyan Student Assembly, the post office, and retail space. Fayerweather provides common areas for lectures, recitals, performances, and other events; it contains a large space on the second floor, Beckham Hall, named for the late Edgar Beckham who was dean of the college from 1973–1990. In winter 2012, the historic squash courts building (41 Wyllys Avenue) on College Row was renovated; now named Boger Hall, it is the state-of-the-art home for the Gordon Career Center, the Paoletti Art History Wing, and the College of Letters.

Michael S. Roth ’78 became Wesleyan’s 16th president at the beginning of the 2007–08 academic year. He has undertaken several initiatives that have energized the curriculum and helped to make a Wesleyan education more affordable for many. He has emphasized a three-year degree program that can save families as much as $50,000; eliminated loans for most students with a family income below $60,000, replacing them with grants; and ensured that other students receiving financial aid are able to graduate without a heavy burden of debt.

Allbritton Hall, opened in 2012, has become a hub of civic engagement— encompassing the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, and the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships. Four new interdisciplinary colleges also have been launched: the College of the Environment, the College of Film and the Moving Image, the College of East Asian Studies, and the College of Integrative Sciences. Another new initiative, the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism, brings together students, faculty, and visiting writers seriously engaged in writing. In 2023, Wesleyan formed the new College of Design and Engineering Studies.

“Battle Cry"
Words and music by Clifford L. Waite, Class of 1906

And then it’s fight for old Wesleyan,
never give in.
Fight to the end
when might and right shall win.
So keep on fighting ’til victory
crowns everyone;
And then it’s fight, fight, fight, fight
for Wesleyan!

Go Wes!

“Come Raise the Song"
Words by F.L. Knowles, music by William B. Davis, both Class of 1894

Come, raise the song for Wesleyan,
Till night and echo send it back;
Come, gather ’round the dear old banner,
Emblazoned with the Red and Black!
We’ll all be young again together;
Life’s short--then fill with joy its span!
The home of joy is Alma Mater,
Then hail! all hail to Wesleyan!

Chorus:
O ivied walls! O storied halls!
O shrine of long ago!
The altar fires our fathers lit
Shall still more brightly glow.

Come, throw away all thoughts of sorrow,
And give the night to mirth and song!
If care must come, it comes tomorrow;
Today our hearts are bold and strong.
Our song is for the dear old college!
Join hands and praise you while we can!
Time ne’er shall shake our deep devotion,
Our deathless love for Wesleyan!

(repeat chorus)

Foss Hill got its name from a professor, Archibald Foss, who lived in a house next to the College Cemetery in the mid-1800s. The house, purchased by Wesleyan in 1880, was demolished in 1955 to make room for construction of the Foss Hill dormitories. 

The College Cemetery, on Foss Hill, was established in 1837. The first burial, in 1837, was John Mott Smith, professor of Latin and Greek; the final one, 1980, was Philip B. Brown ’44, former chairman of the Board of Trustees. Among the 40 or so graves are the Wesleyan’s first president, Willbur Fisk, and third president, Stephen Olin, and their families, two members of the original faculty, two early trustees, faculty sons and daughters who died in childhood, several students who died while on campus, and several alumni. 

Wesleyan had a student vegetarian club as early as the 1830s. The Physiological Society, as it was called, followed the teachings of Sylvester Graham, the inventor of the graham cracker. 

From 1847–1949, several Wesleyan graduates went to China as missionaries and educators. As a result, a number of Chinese students came to Wesleyan in the early 20th century. Two of these students are buried in the College Cemetery. One died in 1918 of the flu; the other had left Wesleyan and died in Norwich, Connecticut in 1923. 

In 1865 Wesleyan's first intercollegiate game was played. Yale won the baseball game, in New Haven, 39–13. It also was Yale’s first intercollegiate game. 

In the latter part of the 19th century, Wesleyan was a pioneer in coeducation. In September 1872, four courageous women entered the previously all-male university. All graduated in the Class of 1876 and were elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Although three other New England colleges admitted women at about this time, the Wesleyan “experiment” was the most viable because it was the first time in the region that more than one woman continued beyond her first term. Male alumni pressured the administration to stop accepting women in 1912. In May 1968, however, trustees voted wisely for the resumption of coeducation. 

One of the very first forward passes completed in a collegiate football game was thrown by a Wesleyan student in fall 1906 in a game against Yale. Wesleyan is among several colleges and universities that may hold this honor. No one will ever really know for sure which was first. 

Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States from 1913 to 1921, taught history and political economy at Wesleyan from 1888 to 1890. Before Wesleyan, Wilson taught at Bryn Mawr, where he felt “overworked, underpaid, and much less than enthusiastic about the higher education of women,” according to David R. Potts, author of Wesleyan University 1831–1910: Collegiate Enterprise in New England. 

Andrus Field opened in 1898 with a baseball game against the University of Virginia. Trustee John Andrus had provided the funds to turn the swampy “rear campus” into the athletic field. 

Gertrude Stein lectured at Wesleyan on her grand American tour in January, 1935. She later wrote in Everybody’s Autobiography that of all the men’s colleges she visited, she liked Wesleyan the best. 

Undefeated football teams at Wesleyan? Yes, indeed! From 1946 to 1948, the Wesleyan team was never defeated or tied. 

Graduate Liberal Studies at Wesleyan, founded in 1953 as the Graduate Summer School for Teachers, was the first graduate level liberal studies program offered to adults anywhere. The master of arts in liberal studies (MALS) degree was first granted at Wesleyan. Today more than 100 institutions have Graduate Liberal Studies programs. 

In 1961, the Highwaymen, a group of Wesleyan undergraduates, hit the top of the pop charts with their single, “Michael (Row the Boat Ashore).” They performed for alumni/ae at the 2002 Reunion/Commencement. Popular singer-songwriter Dar Williams ’89 also performed a free concert for alumni at the same Reunion. 

In 1964, The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave the baccalaureate sermon from Denison Terrace. 

My Weekly Reader, once read by legions of school-aged children in the United States, was published by American Education Publications, owned by Wesleyan from 1949 until it was sold to Xerox in 1965. The sale of AEP helped to finance Wesleyan’s graduate programs and the Center for Advanced Study (now the Center for the Humanities). 

Three famous marathoners are Wesleyan alumni: Bill Rodgers ’70, Amby Burfoot ’68, and Jeff Galloway ’67. Amby Burfoot was a student when he won the Boston Marathon. He went to classes the next day. 

John Cage, famous for his avant-garde music, was affiliated with Wesleyan from the 1950s until his death in 1993. Cage collaborated with members of the Wesleyan music faculty, composed and performed on campus, and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in 1960–61 and 1969–70. Several of his books were published by the Wesleyan University Press. 

On May 3, 1970, the Grateful Dead gave a free concert at Wesleyan. John Perry Barlow ’69, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, co-wrote several Dead songs with Bob Weir, including “Hell in a Bucket” and “I Need a Miracle.” 

In October 1989, Steven Berman ’72 became only the third contestant in the 1989–90 season to win five days in a row on the TV quiz show Jeopardy! On the night of his first appearance, Berman defeated another Wesleyan alumnus, Jay Wish ’71. 

O'Rourke’s, Middletown's all-metal diner, was featured in Gourmet magazine. “Have a good sniff when you enter,” the article advised. “If you are a student of dinerology, or if you are the slightest bit hungry, you are bound to swoon with pleasure.” 

Four volumes of the Wesleyan University Press poetry series have won the Pulitzer Prize since 1959, including 1994’s winner, Neon Vernacular by Yusef Komunyakaa. 

A number of Hollywood’s highest-grossing films have been directed by Wesleyan graduates, including Michael Bay ’86 (The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor), Jon Turteltaub ’85 (While You Were Sleeping, Phenomenon), and Paul Weitz ’88 (American Pie). 

The Davison Rare Book Room in Wesleyan’s Olin Library includes more than 125 books printed between ca. 1455, when printing with moveable type was invented in the West, and 1500. Books from this period are called incunables, from the Latin word for cradle. 

Russell House became a National Historic Landmark in 2001 in recognition of its role in the China trade. Wesleyan acquired the house in 1937 from the descendants of Samuel Russell, the founder of the import-export firm, Russell & Company, about 1812. 

Many Wesleyan graduates have written best-selling books, including the late Robert Ludlum ’51 (The Holcroft Covenant, The Bourne Identity), Robin Cook ’62, (Coma, Chromosome 6), Michael Palmer ’64 (Natural Causes, Extreme Measures), Sebastian Junger ’84 (The Perfect Storm, Fire), and Daniel Handler ’92, using the pseudonym Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events, children’s book series). 

Wesleyan’s alumni have won two Academy Awards: Allie Wrubel ’26 was awarded the 1947 Best Song Oscar for “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” from Song of the South, which he wrote with Ray Gilbert. Akiva Goldsman ’83 received the 2001 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for A Beautiful Mind.

Honorary Degrees and Abbreviations
DD – Doctor of Divinity; LHD – Doctor of Humane Letters; LittD – Doctor of Letters
LLD – Doctor of Laws; ScD – Doctor of Science; DFA – Doctor of Fine Arts

The Commencement speaker is noted with italics.

2020s

2024

• Raj Chetty, LHD, William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University; Director of Opportunity Insights; recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and the John Bates Clark medal
• Michael Greenberg ’76, P’14, ScD, Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School; renowned for discoveries in activity-dependent gene transcription shaping brain development and plasticity; current research on experience-dependent behavioral plasticity and neurological diseases
• Imani Perry, LittD, Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and African American Studies at Harvard University; Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute; scholar focused on the history of Black thought, art, organizing, and imagination

2023

• Jennifer Finney Boylan ’80, LittD, Anna Quindlen Writer-in-Residence and professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University; fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Center for Advanced Study; author; transgender activist
• Annette Gordon-Reed, LittD, Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard; author; speaker; winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in History and the National Book Award in 2008
• Larry McHugh, LHD, former president of the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce
• Donna S. Morea ’76, P’06, LHD, executive in the IT services and software communities; Wesleyan Trustee Emeritus; 2006 Wesleyan Distinguished Alumna Award Recipient

2022

• Dr. Joseph J. Fins ’82, LHD, physician, bioethicist, and academic; E. William Davis, Jr. MD Professor of Medical Ethics, professor of medicine, and chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, Wesleyan Trustee Emeritus
• Freeman A. Hrabowski III, ScD, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, writer, and advocate for underrepresented groups studying STEM
• Gloria Steinem, LHD, political activist, feminist organizer, and writer

2021

• Reginald Dwayne Betts, LittD, author, founder and director of the Million Book Project
• Catherine Coleman Flowers, ScD, MA, environmental health advocate, rural development manager for the Equal Justice Initiative, senior fellow for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, and member of the board of directors of the Climate Reality Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council
• Scott Gottlieb '94, ScD, MD, physician, public health and policy advisor and advocate

2020

• Jacqueline Woodson, author 
• Bradley Whitford theater, television, and film actor, political advocate
• Rev. Dr. William Joseph Barber II, DMin, pastor and social justice advocate

2010s

2019

• Saidiya Hartman ’84, LittD, writer, Columbia University professor

• Hazel V. Carby, LittD, Yale University professor and director of the Initiative on Race, Gender and Globalization
• Edwin C. Sanders II ’69, LHD, founder of Metropolitan Interdenominational Church

2018

• Anita Faye Hill, LLD, educator, social commentator

• Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, ’09, ScD, scientist, entrepreneur, Board chair emeritus

2017

• Claudia B. Rankine, LittD, writer

• Jo Handelsman, ScD, scientist, educator
• Cristina Jiménez Moreta, LHD, activist on behalf of immigrants

2016

• Kwame Anthony Appiah, LittD, Professor of Philosophy and Law, NY University
• Patricia Lee Smith, DFA, Writer, performer, Visual Artist
• Bryan Stevenson, LHD, Founder and CEO, Equal Justice Initiative

2015

• Lin-Manuel Miranda '02, LHD, Composer-lyricist, Actor

• Michael P. Price, LHD, Retired Exec. Director, Goodspeed Musicals
• Beverly Daniel Tatum '75, P'04, LHD, President, Spelman College, Emerita

2014

• Helena Kraemer, ScD, Professor of Biostatistics in Psychiatry
• Theodore M. Shaw '76, LLD, Advocate for Equity and Inclusion
• Hayden White, LHD, Theorist of History

2013

• Majora Carter '88, LHD, President, Majora Carter Group (Urban revitalization strategist)
• James Dresser '63, P'93, LHD, Former Board Chair, Trustee Emeritus
• Joss Whedon '87, LittD, Writer, Director, Producer

2012

• Michael Bennet '87, LLD, United States Senator
• Glenn Ligon '82, DFA, Artist

• Cecile Richards, P'13, LHD, President, Planned Parenthood of America

2011

• Barbara N. Cook, DFA, Soprano Soloist and Broadway Performer
• Paul E. Farmer, ScD, Co-founder, Partners in Health, MD, PhD
• Alberto Ibargüen '66, P'97, LLD, Chief Executive Officer, Knight Foundation
• Jean Adams Shaw P'79, LHD, Retired Director, Wesleyan Center for the Arts
• Ralph H. "Biff" Shaw II '51, P'79, LHD, Retired CEO, Shaw Belting & Farmers/Mechanics Bank

2010

• Stanley Cavell, LittD, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Harvard
• John Hickenlooper ’74, MA'80, LLD, Mayor, City of Denver
• Ruth Simmons, LittD, President, Brown University
• Richard K. Winslow ’40, P'71, LittD, Professor of Music, Emeritus

2000s

2009

• Jennifer Alexander ’88, P'15,'16, LHD, Community Leader/Children and Economic Development
• Mark Masselli, P15,'16, LHD, Community Leader/Health Care
• Azim Premji P'99, LHD, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
• Anna Quindlen P’09, LittD, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author and Columnist

2008

• Jamaica Kincaid, LHD, Author
• Senator Barack Obama, LLD, United States Senator, Democratic Presidential Nominee
• Morton Schapiro, LLD, President, Williams College
• Philip Trager ’56, P’81, DFA, Photographer, Attorney

2007

• Jewel Plummer Cobb, P'79, ScD, Research Biologist
• Alan M. Dachs ‘70, P'98, LHD, Trustee Emeritus and Chair Emeritus
• Jim Lehrer, P'85, LHD, NewsHour Anchor
• Nobutaka Machimura, LHD, Former Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs
• Thomas Malone, ScD, Environmentalist
• Rosa DeLauro, LHD, United States Congresswoman

2006

• John Hope Franklin, LittD, Professor of History, Emeritus, Duke

• Mary O. McWilliams ’71, LHD, President, Regence BlueShield, Trustee Emerita

2005

• William Barber, P'85, LittD, Andrews Professor of Economics, Emeritus
• William "Bill" Belichick ’75, P’07, '15, LHD, Head Coach, New England Patriots
• Amy Gutmann, LittD, President, University of Pennsylvania
• Edward P. Jones, LHD, Author, Pulitzer Prize 2004

2004

• William Donaldson, LHD, Chairman, US Securities & Exchange Commission
• Yuri Kochiyama, LHD, Social Justice Activist
• Njabulo Ndebele, LittD, Author/Vice Chancellor University of Cape Town
• Robert Schumann '44, LHD, Businessman, Philanthropist

2003

• Doreen Freeman P’77, LHD, Adminstrator Freeman Foundation
• Yusef Komunyakaa, Doctor of Arts, Pulitzer Prize Poet
• Jody Williams, LHD, Nobel Peace Prize/ICBL Founder

2002

• William Manchester, LittD, author
• Walter Massey, LHD, President, Morehouse College
• Martha Nussbaum, LittD, Professor of Law and Ethics
• Stuart F. Silloway ’29, P’59, GP’91 LHD, Wesleyan Trustee Emeritus

2001

• Evelyn Fox Keller, LittD, Professor of History, MIT

• Tom Gerety, LHD, President, Amherst College
• Bernice Johnson Reagon, LittD, Founder, Sweet Honey in the Rock
• Edson "Pelé" Arantes do Nascimento, P'01, LHD, International Soccer Player

2000

• Nancy N. Campbell, MALS'80, LHD, Past Chair National Trust/ Historic Preservation
• Clint Eastwood, DFA, Actor, Producer, Citizen Activist
• Rosa L. Parks, LHD, Civil Rights Pioneer
• Harold Varmus, P'99, ScD, Nobel Prize Laureate/ Medicine

1990s

1999

• Thadious M. Davis, LittD, Professor of English, Author
• Tony Kushner, DFA, Playwright
• Bill Lann Lee, LLD, Acting Ass't Attorney General, Civil Rights, US Dept of Justice
• Steven B. Pfeiffer ’69, P'99, '05, '08, '13, LLD, Chair of Wes Board Emeritus, Fulbright & Jaworski
• Amartya Kumar Sen P'99, Hon. '95, Economist and Nobel Prize Winner
• K. Barry Sharpless, P'99, '04, ScD, Professor of Chemistry, Scripps Institute

1998

• Linda Chavez-Thompson, LLD, Exec VP, AFL-CIO
• David Jenkins ’53, P'78,'81,'83, GP’15 LHD, Trustee Emeritus
• Stuart Levy, ScD, Microbiologist
• Sonny Rollins, DFA, Jazz Composer
• Caroline Walker Bynum, LittD, Historian, Medieval Scholar
• Oprah Winfrey, Media Executive and Philanthropist

1997

• Katharina (Kay) Butterfield, LHD, Wife of Wesleyan President
• Sir Frank Kermode, LittD, Scholar & Literary Critic
• Bernard Knox, LittD, Classicist and Scholar
• Jonathan Kozol, LHD, Activist, Teacher, Author
• Georges May, LittD, Scholar & Author, French Literary Critic
• Elizabeth Morgan, LHD, Board of Ed, Community Leader
• Paul Simon, LLD, Former US Senator
• Anna Deavere Smith, DFA, Actress, Teacher, Playwright and Performer
• John Woodhouse ’53, LHD, Chairman of Sysco Corp

1996

• A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., LLD, Retired Federal Judge

• Jay A. Levy ’60, ScD, Virologist and Researcher, University of CA
• Jessye Norman, DFA, International Concert Artist
• Nell Irvin Painter, LittD, Professor of American History, Princeton University
• John C. Sawhill, ScD, President and CEO, Nature Conservancy

1995

• Merce Cunningham, DFA, Dancer
• Paula Giddings, LHD, Journalist, African American Activist
• Amartya Kumar Sen, P'99, LHD, Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Lamont U
• Charles Sumner Stone Jr. ’48, LittD, Journalist and Civil Rights Activist
• Torsten N. Wiesel, ScD, Neuroscientist, Nobel Prize/ Medicine

1994

• Douglas J. Bennet Jr. ’59, P’87, ’94, LLD, Asst. Secy./State, Former President of NPR
• Johnnetta Betsch Cole, LLD, President, Spelman College
• Satoshi Omura, ScD, Pres. Kitasato Inst., Tokyo
• Lowell P. Weicker Jr., LLD, Governor of CT

1993

• Peter Brown, LittD, Professor of History, Princeton
• Gordon P. Eaton ’51, ScD, Dir, Columbia University Lamont Doherty Observatory
• Houghton Freeman ’43, P’77, LLD, Freeman Foundation, Trustee Emeritus
• Paul Monette, LittD, Author, Poet
• Cornel West, LittD, Professor of Religion, Dir. Afro-American Studies, Princeton

1992

• John Wyllys Baird ’38, P'69, '78, LLD, Trustee
• Roy R. DeCarava, DFA, Photographer
• Morris Seligman Dees Jr., LLD, Exec Dir. and Chief Trial Counsel, Southern Proverty Law Ctr
• Carol Gilligan, LHD, Author, Professor of Education, Harvard
• Leroy E. Hood, P'92, ScD, Biologist/ Dir Nat'l Science Foundation and Technology Center
• Martin Charles Scorsese, P'98, DFA, Film Director

1991

• Corinne Claiborne Boggs, LLD, Fmr Congresswoman

• Gwendolyn Brooks, LittD, Pulitzer Prize Poet
• James Pierpont Comer, LHD, Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale
• Charles Erroll Exley ’51, P'83, GP’00, ’15, LLD, President and CEO, NCR Corp.
• Quincy Jones, DFA, Musician, Composer, Grammy Awardee
• Brenda Atkinson Milner, ScD, Professor of Psychology, McGill U
• Alyce Faye Wattleton, LLD, Pres. of Planned Parenthood

1990

• Berenice Abbott, DFA, Photographer
• Jonathan Demme, DFA, Filmmaker
• Seamus Heaney, LittD, Poet
• Herbert D. Kelleher ’53, LLD, President and CEO, Southwest Airlines
• Oscar Lanford ’60, ScD, Mathematician
• Desmond Tutu, Doctor of Divinity, Archbishop, Nobel Laureate/ Peace Prize

1980s

1989 Inauguration of William Chace

• Colin G. Campbell, LLD, President Emeritus, Wesleyan
• Frank Oakley, LLD, President, Williams College
• Peter Pouncey, LLD, President, Amherst College

1989

• John R. Jakobson ’52, P'05, LLD, Trustee Emeritus
• Paul C. Lauterbur, ScD, Chemist
• Nathan A. Scott Jr., LHD, Clergyman, Literary Critic
• Marian Wright Edelman, LLD, President, Children's Defense Fund

1988

• Gerald Lee Baliles ’63, LLD, Governor of VA
• Robert M. Ball ’35, MA'36, P'65, LLD, Former Commissioner, Social Security
• D. Ronald Daniel ’52, P'77, '82, '94, LHD, Businessman/ Trustee Emeritus
• Sandra M. Gilbert, LittD, Professor of English, Princeton
• Max Helmut Reihlen ’55, ScD, Dir. Deutsches Institute fur Normung
• William Zinsser, P'80, GP’17, LittD, Writer/ Editor

1987

• Bruce Corwin ’62, LLD, Civic Leader
• William Cosby Jr., P'87, LHD, Entertainer [revoked, 2018]
• Jim Dine, GP’09, DFA, Artist
• A. LeRoy Greason ’44, LittD, President, Bowdoin College
• Ellen A. Peters, LLD, Judge
• Robert Wilson, ScD, Physicist
• Ezra Zilkha ’47, P'73,'81, GP’10, ’10, ’16, LLD, Businessman/ Trustee Emeritus

1986

• Carlo De Benedetti, P'85, LLD, Businessman
• David Hays, Doctor of Arts, Founder, National Theater of the Deaf
• Nannerl Keohane, LLD, President, Wellesley College
• Jehan Sadat, LHD, Educator, Social Activist

1986 Rededication of Olin Library

• Daniel Boorstin, LittD, Librarian of Congress
• Robert S. Cohen ’43, LittD, Trustee Emeritus
• Richard W. Couper, LLD, Trustee Emeritus
• Bern Dibner, ScD, Businessman and Collector
• John P. McDonald, LLD, Librarian

1985

• Reginald Bartholomew, LLD, Diplomat
• Frank G. Binswanger Sr., P'50,'54, GP’76, ’78, ’83, ’83, LLD, Businessman
• Maxwell Roach, P'93, DFA, Musician
• Cicely Tyson, DFA, Actress

1984

• Natalie Zemon Davis, LittD, Professor of History, Princeton
• Edward M. Kennedy, P'84, '08, LLD, Senator
• David G. McCullough, LittD, Author
• Nicholas J. Turro Jr. ’60, ScD, Professor of Chemistry, Columbia University
• Walter B. Wriston ’41, LLD, Chairman, Citicorp

1983

• Alan Alda, P'83, DFA, Actor
• Harvey B. Gram Jr. ’27, GP’83, LHD, Businessman
• Terry J. Hatter Jr. ’54, P'92, LLD, Federal Judge
• Yoshinori Matsuyama, LLD, Educator
• Toni Morrison, LittD., Author
• Frederick Mosteller, ScD, Academician

1982

• John J. Driscoll ’33, MA '34, P'69, LHD, Labor Leader
• Carlos Fuentes, LHD, Author
• Earl G. Graves, LLD, Businessman
• Meg Greenfield, LittD, Writer
• Grace Paley, LittD, Writer
• Maarten Schmidt, ScD, Astronomer
• Robert M.  Solow, LLD, Economist

1981

• Frank Capra, DFA, Director/ Producer
• David Halberstam, LittD, Author, Journalist
• Louisa Kennedy, LHD, Founder of FLAG
• Max Tishler, GGP’14, ScD, Emeritus Professor of Science, Wesleyan

1981: Sesquicentennial Convocation (September)

• Mildred Dunnock Urmy DFA, actress
• John W. Bodine, P'69, '76, GP '96, ’02, '03, '19, LLD, attorney, Wesleyan trustee
• Elbert K. Fretwell Jr. '44, P'79, LLD, Chancellor, University of North Carolina
• Gerald Holton '41, MA'42, P'77, LittD, historian of science at Harvard
• Robert A. Rosenbaum, LittD Wesleyan University Professor of Mathematics and Sciences

1980

• Philip B. Brown ’44, P'83, LHD, Lawyer, Chair, Wesleyan Board
• Jill K. Conway, LLD, President, Smith College
• Ralph W. Ellison, LittD, Novelist, Essayist
• Louis E. Martin, LLD, Journalist/ Government Service
• Jean Francois-Poncet ’47, LLD, Foreign Minister of France

1970s

1979

• Mansfield Freeman ’16, P'43, LLD, Businessman and Teacher
• Ella Grasso, LLD, Governor
• Henry Russell Hitchcock Jr., LHD, Architectural History
• Elie Wiesel, LHD, Author, Nobel Laureate

1978

• John Chandler '78, LLD, President, Williams
• Robert Coles, LHD, Psychiatrist
• Alan Shestack ’60, DFA, Dir. of Yale Art Gallery
• Harold Stearns ’21, ScD, Geologist
• Harold Syrett ’35, LLD, Editor of Hamilton Papers

1977

• Vernon E. Jordan, LLD, Exec Dir Natl Urban League

• John U. Monro, LHD, Dean of Freshman, Miles College
• Maxine  Singer, ScD, National Institute of Health
• John W. Ward '63, LLD, President, Amherst
• Richard P. Wilbur, MA '58, LittD, Poet

Honorary Degrees Were Not Awarded Between 1972 and 1976

1976

• John William Ward ’63, President, Amherst College
  
  

1975

• Willard M. Wallace ’34, Wesleyan professor

1974

• Pauline Kael, Movie Critic

1973

• John W. Macy, Jr. ’38, P’75, ’78, ’84, Chairman, U.S. Civil Service, Wesleyan Trustee

1972

• Carl E. Schorske, P’81, Former Professor, Wesleyan

1971

• Robert Anderson, LLD, Chair of Board, Atlantic Richfield
• Kingman Brewster Jr., LHD, President of Yale
• Charles Gillispie ’40, ScD, Professor of History, Princeton
• Martha Graham, DFA, Dancer
• Joseph Melnick ’36, GP’90, ScD, Professor of Virology, Baylor Univ.
• George Wiley '44, LHD, Exec Dir., National Welfare Rights Organization

1970

• John Holt, Activist and Author

• Harold Hugo, Doctor of Humanities, President, Meriden Gravure
• Theodore Lockwood, LHD, Presiident, Trinity College
• Roger Tory Peterson, ScD, Ornithologist
• Robert Penn Warren, LittD., Author and Pulitzer Prize Winner
• Andrew Young, DD, Minister, Exec VP SCLC

1960s

1969

• Julian Bond, LLD, Georgia House of Representatives
• Art  Buchwald, LittD, Newspaper Columnist and Cartoonist
• William P. Haas, DD, President, Providence College
• Burton C. Hallowell ’36, MA’38, LHD, President, Tufts, Former Wesleyan Exec VP
• Lelan F. Sillin Jr., P'77, LLD, President of Northeast Utilities
• Stewart L. Udall, LLD, Former Secretary of the Interior

1968

• John C. Bennett, DD, Pres. Union Theological
• Leonard Bernstein, DFA, Conductor
• John W. Gardner, LHD, Chair, Urban Coalition, Former Secretary, HEW
• Murray Gell-Man, ScD, Professor of Physics, Cal Tech
• Joseph Palamountain Jr., LHD, President, Skidmore
• John R. Reitemeyer, LLD, President and Publisher, Hartford Courant
• Charles E. Shain, LHD, President, Connecticut College
• Monroe E. Spaght, LLD, Chair of Board, Shell Oil

1967

• Norman O. Brown, LittD, Former Wesleyan Professor
• Victor L. Butterfield, President of Wesleyan
• Harry Caplan, LittD, Professor of Classical Language and Literature, Cornell
• Gilbert H. Clee ’35, LLD, Dir., McKinsey & Co.
• Emilio Q. Daddario ’39, ScD, Congressman
• René J. Dubos, ScD, Bacteriologist, Author
• John W. Macy Jr. ’38, P’75, ’78, ’84, LLD, Chairman, US Civil Service, Trustee
• Frederick B. Millett ’65, Litt. D, Professor of English, Emeritus
• Carl E. Schorske, P’81, LittD, Former Professor, Wesleyan

1966

• William Sloane Coffin Jr., DD, Chaplain Yale
• Henry Hamill Fowler, LLD, Secretary of Treasury
• Justin McCortney O'Brien, LittD, Author, Educator
• Richard Perkin, ScD, President, Perkin-Elmer Co.

1965

• Edwin D. Etherington ’48, P'84, LLD, Pres., American Stock Exchange
• Francis Keppel, LLD, Commissioner of Education
• James K. Mathews, DD, Methodist Bishop
• Michael Polyani, LLD, Political Economist

1964

• Mary I. Bunting (Smith), LLD, President, Radcliffe
• Martin Luther King Jr., DD, Civil Rights Leader
• Harry F. Lewis ’12, MS'13, LLD, VP, Institute for Paper Chemistry
• Dwight Macdonald, LittD, Arts Critic
• R. Sargent Shriver Jr., LLD, Director of Peace Corps

The MacArthur Fellowship, provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and commonly known as the “genius” grant, is a “$625,000, no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential,” according to the MacArthur website. Fellows are selected based on “exceptional creativity,” “promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments” and “potential for the Fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.”

Faculty and Wesleyan alumni who have received the award include:

Ruth Behar ’77
MacArthur Class of 1988
Ruth Behar ’77 is a cultural anthropologist whose work focuses on folk religion, women’s lives, and personal narration in historical and contemporary Cuba, Mexico, and Spain. She is a professor at the University of Michigan.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/327/

Anthony Braxton, John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus
MacArthur Class of 1994
Anthony Braxton, John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus, is an innovative musician and composer who has been at the forefront of improvised music for decades.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/485/

Majora Carter ’88
MacArthur Class of 2005
Majora Carter ’88 is an urban revitalization strategist transforming the quality of life for South Bronx residents by creating new opportunities for transportation, recreation, nutrition, and economic development.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/753/

Vincent Fecteau ’92
MacArthur Class of 2016
Vincent Fecteau ’92 is a sculptor creating deceptively intricate, abstract pieces that provoke thoughtful reflection and bring viewers to the threshold between visual perception and objective knowledge of three-dimensional space.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/957/

Mary Halvorson '02
MacArthur Class of 2019
Mary Halvorson '02 is a guitarist, ensemble leader, and composer who is pushing against established musical categories with a singular sound on her instrument and an aesthetic that evolves with each new album and configuration of bandmates.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1037/

Saidiya Hartman '84, Hon. '19
MacArthur Class of 2019
Saidiya Hartman '84, Hon. '19 is a scholar of African American literature and cultural history whose works explore the afterlife of slavery in modern American society and bear witness to lives, traumas, and fleeting moments of beauty that historical archives have omitted or obscured.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1038/

James Longley ’94
MacArthur Class of 2009
James Longley ’94 is a filmmaker deepening our understanding of the conflicts in the Middle East through intimate portraits of communities living under extremely challenging conditions.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/55/

Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02
MacArthur Class of 2015
Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 is a playwright, composer and performer (In the Heights and Hamilton), who is expanding the conventions of musical theater with a popular culture sensibility and musical styles and voices that reflect the diverse cultural panorama of the American urban experience.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/941/

Maggie Nelson ’94
MacArthur Class of 2016
Maggie Nelson ’94 is a writer rendering pressing issues of our time into portraits of day-to-day experience in works of nonfiction marked by dynamic interplay between personal experience and critical theory.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/962/

Eiko Otake, Menakka and Essel Bailey ’66 Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the College of the Environment
MacArthur Class of 1996
Eiko (and Koma) Otake are dancers and choreographers who have created an unusual theater of movement that engenders beautiful and mysterious images.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/542/

Cameron Rowland '11
MacArthur Class of 2019
Cameron Rowland is an artist making visible the institutions, systems, and policies that perpetuate systemic racism and economic inequality.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1048/

Sam-Ang Sam, PhD ’89
MacArthur Class of 1994
Sam-Ang Sam, PhD ’89, is a musician and cultural preservationist who works with the Khmer people in the United States and Cambodia to preserve and reinvigorate the Khmer performing arts.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/501/

Carl Schorske, former professor of history and social science
MacArthur Class of 1981
Carl Schorske (1915–2005) was an intellectual historian who explored the relationship between European high culture and social and political change. He taught at Wesleyan from 1946 to 1960.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/89/

Tyshawn Sorey, MA ’11, former assistant professor of music
MacArthur Class of 2017
Tyshawn Sorey, MA ’11, assistant professor of music, is a composer and musician assimilating and transforming ideas from a broad spectrum of musical idioms and defying distinctions between genres, composition, and improvisation in a singular expression of contemporary music.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1000/

FORMER VISITING FACULTY RECIPIENTS

Liz Lerman
MacArthur Class of 2002
Liz Lerman is a choreographer demonstrating that dance can build upon people’s experience to recreate their connections across ages and communities.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/688/

Chimamanda Adichie
MacArthur Class of 2008
Chimamanda Adichie is a fiction writer exploring the circumstances that lead to ethnic conflict in richly imagined novels and stories inspired by events in her native Nigeria.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/69/

John Ashbery
MacArthur Class of 1985
John Ashbery is best known as a poet, but he is also an art critic, a playwright, and a translator.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/245/

Junot Díaz
MacArthur Class of  2012
Junot Díaz is a fiction writer using raw, vernacular dialogue and spare, unsentimental prose to draw readers into the various and distinct worlds that immigrants must straddle.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/864/

George Saunders
MacArthur Class of 2006
George Saunders is a writer satirizing and humanizing the moral dilemmas faced by Americans in the twenty-first century.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/788/

Mark Strand
MacArthur Class of 1987
Mark Strand is a poet and writer whose work is distinctive for its deeply inward sense of language.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/320/