Novelist, Nobel laureate, and Princeton professor emerita Toni Morrison was one of six people to be awarded honorary degrees at Commencement. In addition to Morrison, a member of Princeton’s faculty for 17 years, the honor went to physician and geneticist Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health; Lorraine Daston, a science historian; Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, whose firm designed the Lewis Library on campus; and Sakena Yacoobi, executive director of the Afghan Institute of Learning, a nongovernmental organization, led by women, that supports schools for girls in Afghanistan. The sixth honorary degree went to President Tilghman; announced as a surprise that was not included in the program, it was conferred by trustee chairwoman Kathryn “Katie” Hall ’80.
