2005 HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENTS

Each year Haverford College awards four honorary degrees to men and women who have distinguished themselves in letters, the sciences, or the arts. Many recipients are noted for their contributions to the overall betterment of humankind and/or Haverford College.

Antonia Hernandez is the president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, which partners with a wide variety of southern California organizations in health and human services, affordable housing, early childhood education, and community arts and culture. Hernandez earned both her BA (History, 1970) and JD (1974) from UCLA. An expert in civil rights and immigration issues, she began her legal career as a staff attorney for the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice. She also served as counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and in 1981 became president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. MALDEF is a non profit organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of the nations 35 million Latinos through the legal system, community education, and research and policy initiatives.

Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated political columnist whose work emphasizes the humorous aspects of both state and national government. She is from Houston, Texas, graduated from Smith College in 1966, attended Columbia University's School of Journalism, and studied for a year at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris. Her first newspaper job was at the Houston Chronicle followed by a series of newspapers, including the Minneapolis Tribune, Texas Observer, New York Times, Dallas Times-Herald, and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She became an independent journalist in 2001 and her freelance work has appeared in Esquire, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The Progressive, and Mother Jones. She has also published six books, including most recently, Who Let the Dogs in: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known. Ivins is active in First Amendment issues, donates a speech every month to the First Amendment, and has received numerous awards for both her journalism and her public service.

The South African vocalist/guitarist Dave Matthews formed the Dave Matthews Band in Virginia in the early '90s. The group's music represents a synthesis of pop-oriented and worldbeat traditions and has produced a series of hugely successful recordings and concerts. Matthews is also deeply committed to preserving music education in schools, to environmental education, and to humanitarian works, and he has established the Bama Works Foundation to carry through on this promise. He has also been a leader in promoting public discussion on the role of the media and government in controlling artistic work. Dave Matthews is a Quaker.

Juan Williams, one of America's leading journalists, is a senior correspondent for National Public Radio and a contributing political analyst for the Fox News Channel. He is the author of the critically acclaimed biography Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary and the nonfiction bestseller Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years. During his 21-year career at The Washington Post, Williams served as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, and White House reporter. He has won an Emmy award for TV documentary writing and won widespread critical acclaim for a series of documentaries including Politics - The New Black Power. Articles by Williams have appeared in magazines ranging from Newsweek, Fortune, and The Atlantic Monthly to Ebony, Gentlemen's Quarterly, and The New Republic. He is a 1976 graduate of Haverford College, a recipient of the Haverford Award for Distinguished Service to Society, and a former member of the Board of Managers.