The Conferring of Honorary Degrees
Patti McGill Peterson

Citation Presented by Brian J. Whalen, Associate Dean of the College and Executive Director of Global Education, Associate Professor of International Studies, Business and Management
Conferring of the degree by William G. Durden, President

Patti McGill Peterson , you have had, and continue to have, a distinguished career as a professor, academic leader, and one of the world's foremost international educators.

Over the 16 years that you served as a college president at Wells College and at Saint Lawrence University, you pioneered the development of international programs and curricula. The Patti McGill Peterson Center for International and Intercultural Studies at Saint Lawrence is testimony to your legacy. You brought your energy and vision for global education to critically important roles through chairing the U.S.-Canada Commission for Educational Exchange, serving as president of Association of Colleges and Universities of New York State, and by serving on the boards of the Council of International Educational Exchange, the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Fund, and the United Negro College Fund's International Development Partnerships Advisory Board. As the Executive Director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars and Vice President of the Institute of International Education you are a passionate and articulate voice for the urgency of international educational exchange and academic cooperation among universities worldwide.

Under your leadership, the world's most important exchange program, the Fulbright Program, has expanded its outreach significantly, and now involves each year over 1600 U.S. and visiting scholars and professionals from 140 nations. You have greatly expanded the reach and the effectiveness of the Fulbright Program through creation of the New Century Global Scholars Program, as well as the Fulbright Alumni Program. Academics and business leaders, politicians, parents and students, and all who are impacted by international education are influenced by your work. You wrote recently of the importance of sustaining international education in a "Code Orange World" in the face of a multitude of new obstacles and challenges in moving students and scholars across borders. In your clear and passionate voice you wrote that "staying true to our course takes more time, persistence, and basic faith in humankind," and that the "worst thing we could do is give up and recommend that everyone stay at home." Your work has made it possible for thousands and thousands of students, scholars, and professionals to venture from their homes to discover new homes in other cultures. And in this sense, your life's work has made the world a much better place.

Mr. President, I am honored to present to you Dr. Patti McGill Peterson, Executive Director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, for the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Global Education.

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Patti McGill Peterson, upon the recommendation of the Faculty to the Board of Trustees, and by its mandamus, I confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Global Education, with the rights, privileges, and distinction thereunto appertaining, in token of which I present you with this diploma and cause you to be invested with the hood of Dickinson College appropriate to your degree.

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