Rutgers to Award Dalai Lama Honorary Degree During September Visit

February 10, 2005

NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, will award the Dalai Lama an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree when the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people visits in September, the Rutgers Board of Governors announced at its meeting today.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, will deliver a public talk, “Peace, War and Reconciliation,” as the Mason Welch Gross Lecturer (named for the former Rutgers president) Sept. 25 on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus at a venue to be determined. Admission will be by ticket only.

The lecture by the recipient of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize will be the keynote event in a semester focusing on issues related to conflict and moral obligation. A university committee is organizing honors seminars, special lectures, concerts, exhibits, films and other cultural events and activities inspired by the Dalai Lama’s visit.

“It will be an honor to welcome this internationally respected advocate of peace to Rutgers,” said President Richard L. McCormick. “The Dalai Lama’s visit is capable of fostering an exceptional universitywide dialogue focused on such relevant, real-world issues as human and animal rights, spirituality and nationhood, science and morality, environmental ethics, religion, global conflict and peace, war, resistance and reconciliation.

“Our organizing committee is working diligently to bring to campus scholars from across many disciplines, politicians, ethicists, religious leaders, writers, artists, performers and others whose work shares a concern with these global issues to expand the knowledge of the Rutgers community.”

Recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama at age 2, the Dalai Lama assumed full political leadership of Tibet when he was 15. In 1959, following the unsuccessful Tibetan national uprising against the Chinese Communist government, the Dalai Lama was forced to seek political asylum in India, where he works to preserve the Tibetan language, religion and culture within the refugee community.

For more information, visit the Web site president.rutgers.edu/dalailama.

Contact: Steve Manas 732/932-7084, ext. 612 E-mail: smanas@ur.rutgers.edu