List of Hofstra University honorary degree recipients

This is a list of notable honorary degree recipients from Hofstra University in New York.

Key

	denotes alumni of Hofstra

1940s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Robert Moses	1948	New York Park Commissioner and Chairman of the Long Island State Park Commission
Trygve Lie	1949	United Nations Secretary-General
Walter Bedell Smith	1949	Commander of the First Army and Ambassador to Russia

1950s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Robert P. Patterson	1950	Former Secretary of War
Dwight D. Eisenhower	1950	President of Columbia University and Former Army Chief of Staff
Aymar Embury II	1951	Architect of the Whitestone and Triborough bridges
William Henry Harrison	1951	Head of the National Defense Production Administration
Harry Woodburn Chase	1951	Chancellor of New York University
Arthur S. Adams	1952	President of the American Council on Education
Cornelia Otis Skinner	1952	Writer and actress
John W. Davis	1953	Former United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom
Carroll Vincent Newsom	1953	Associate Commissioner for Higher Education in New York State
John Mason Brown	1954	Author and drama critic
Ward Melville	1954	Suffolk County industrialist and civic leader
Henry Townley Heald	1955	Chancellor of New York University
Joan Whitney Payson	1955	Philanthropist
Morris Bishop	1956	Professor of Romance Literature at Cornell University
Arthur A. Houghton Jr.	1956	President of Corning Glass Works
Harold Medina	1957	Judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Milislav Demerec	1957	Director of the genetics department of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
James E. Allen Jr.	1957	New York State Education Commissioner
Charles B. Stone III	1957	Boss of the Continental Air Command
Thomas G. Bergin	1958	Master of Timothy Dwight College
Livingston T. Merchant	1959	Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs

1960s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Eric A. Walker	1960	President of Pennsylvania State University
McGeorge Bundy	1960	Dean of Faculty at Harvard University
Arthur H. Dean	1961	Chairman of Cornell University Board of Trustees
George Emlen Roosevelt	1961	Trustee of New York University
Adlai Stevenson II	1961	United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Simon H. Rifkind	1962	Judge for the Southern District of New York
Sir Patrick Dean	1964	British Representative to the United Nations
Louis H. Bauer	1964	Former head of the American Medical Association
John Cranford Adams	1964	Hofstra President
Albert L. Nickerson	1964	Board Chairman of the Mobil
Robert Goheen	1965	President of Princeton University
Henry Viscardi Jr.	1965	Founder and President of Abilities Inc.
George L. Cadigan	1965	Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri
Martin Luther King Jr.	1965	President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Jacob Javits	1966	United States Senator from New York
Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr.	1966	President of the New York Zoological Society
Stewart Udall	1966	United States Secretary of the Interior
Harry Frank Guggenheim	1967	Editor and publisher of Newsday
August Heckscher II	1967	Parks Commissioner of New York City
James McNaughton Hester	1967	11th President of New York University
Broadus Mitchell	1967	Economics professor at Hofstra
Robert G. Vosper	1967	Former President of the American Library Association
Sidney Dillon Ripley	1968	Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
James Pitman	1969	Former Member of Parliament
Edward J. Speno	1969	Member of the New York State Senate
Mary E. Switzer	1969	Administrator of the Social and Rehabilitation Service for the US Department of Health, Education and Wellness
George H. Williams	1969	President of American University

1970s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Elizabeth Koontz	1970	First African-American President of the National Education Association
Eugene Nickerson	1970	County Executive of Nassau County
Jacques Piccard	1970	Swiss oceanographer
James Herman Robinson	1970	Founder of Operation Crossroads Africa
Joan Ganz Cooney	1971	Co-founder of Sesame Workshop
Eleazar de Carvalho	1971	Music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Hofstra Professor
John W. Gardner	1971	Former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
Nancy Hanks	1971	Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
Bill Moyers	1971	Former White House Press Secretary
Chiang Yee	1971	Professor of Chinese at Columbia University
Andrew Heiskell	1972	Chairman and CEO of Time Inc.
William J. McGill	1972	16th President of Columbia University
Howard A. Rusk	1972	Founder of the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine
Tom C. Clark	1973	Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Elias James Corey	1974	Professor of Organic Chemistry at Harvard University
Clark Kerr	1974	Former President of the University of California
Cy Leslie	1974	Founder and President of MGM/UA Home Entertainment Group
Robert Nisbet	1974	Albert Schweitzer Chair of Humanities at Columbia University
Alan Pifer	1974	President of the Carnegie Corporation
Alan Schneider	1974	Theatre director
B.F. Skinner	1974	Professor of Psychology at Harvard University
Robert Coles	1975	Professor at Harvard Medical School
John Houseman	1975	Actor, producer
Aryeh Neier	1975	Co-founder of Human Rights Watch
James Pitman	1975	Chief of the Department of Medicine at Winthrop University Hospital
Joachim Prinz	1975	Former President of the American Jewish Congress
Walter Sullivan	1975	Professor of English at Vanderbilt University
Elie Wiesel	1975	Holocaust survivor, author of Night
Frank Zarb	1975	Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration
Daniel Patrick Moynihan	1976	United States Ambassador to the United Nations
James Watson	1976	Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Francis Ford Coppola	1977	Film director
William Atwood	1978	Former United States Ambassador to Guinea and Kenya
William M. Batten	1978	Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange
Mary Calderone	1978	President and co-founder of Sex Information and Education Council of the United States
Robert Abrams	1979	Attorney General of New York

1980s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Isaac Asimov	1980	Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University
Arthur F. Burns	1980	Former Chair of the Federal Reserve
Bernard S. Meyer	1980	Justice on the New York Court of Appeals
Eugene Odum	1980	Professor of Ecology at the University of Georgia
Tamara Dembo	1981	Professor Emerita of Psychology at Clark University
Malcolm Forbes	1981	Publisher of Forbes magazine
Gerald Ford	1981	38th President of the United States
Samuel Pierce	1981	United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Felix Rohatyn	1981	Chairman of the Mutual Assistance Corporation
Neil Simon	1981	Playwright, screenwriter, actor
Sol Wachtler	1981	Justice on the New York Court of Appeals
Romare Bearden	1982	Artist
Courtney Blackman	1982	Governor to the Central Bank of Barbados
Françoise Gilot	1982	French painter
Jim Jensen	1982	Reporter
Robert Kibbee	1982	Chancellor of the City University of New York
Ray Kurzweil	1982	Inventor
Hugh Carey	1983	Former Governor of New York
Al D'Amato	1983	United States Senator from New York
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.	1983	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Herbert Kelman	1983	Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University
James Tobin	1983	Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University
Sanford Weill	1983	Founder of the National Academy Foundation
Siggi Wilzig	1983	Holocaust survivor, advisor to Elie Wiesel
Maryanne Trump Barry	1984	Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey
Peter Drucker	1984	Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University
Alan Greenspan	1984	Economist
Theodore W. Kheel	1984	Attorney and labor mediator
Gloria Steinem	1984	Feminist and political activist
Robert T. Beyer	1985	Professor of Physics at Brown University
Ernest L. Boyer	1985	President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Tom Brokaw	1985	Anchor of NBC Nightly News
Raymond E. Brown	1985	Auburn Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies at the Union Theological Seminary
Wilson Goode	1985	Mayor of Philadelphia
Maxine Greene	1985	William F. Russell Professor for the Foundations of Education at Columbia Teacher's College
Arthur Levitt	1985	Owner of Roll Call
Carl Sagan	1985	Astronomer
Budd Schulberg	1985	Screenwriter
Arnold Burns	1986	United States Deputy Attorney General
Peter Kalikow	1986	President of H. J. Kalikow & Co.
David Laventhol	1986	Editor of The Washington Post
Harold Arthur Poling	1986	President of the Ford Motor Company
Francis T. Purcell	1986	Nassau County Executive
Arnold A. Saltzman	1986	Businessman
Barbara Walters	1986	Journalist
E.O. Wilson	1986	Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University
Rong Yiren	1986	Chairman of China International Trust and Investment Corporation
Warren M. Anderson	1987	Member of the New York State Senate
Stephen Jay Gould	1987	Professor of Geology at Harvard University
George C. Pratt	1987	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Jehan Sadat	1987	Former First Lady of Egypt
Les Wexner	1987	Chairman of Limited Brands
John Dingell	1988	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan
Elliot Eisner	1988	Professor of Art and Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education
Galway Kinnell	1988	Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Norman F. Lent	1988	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York
Elliot Richardson	1988	Former United States Secretary of Commerce
Olin Clyde Robison	1988	President of Middlebury College
Whitney North Seymour	1988	Attorney
Whitney North Seymour Jr.	1988	Co-founder of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Edward J. Carlough	1989	President of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association
Nelson DeMille	1989	Author
John R. Dunne	1989	Member of the New York Senate from the 6th district
Marian Wright Edelman	1989	President and founder of Children's Defense Fund
Christopher Keene	1989	General Director of the New York City Opera
Ralph S. Larsen	1989	CEO of Johnson & Johnson
Charles Rangel	1989	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York
Tony Rosenthal	1989	Abstract sculptor
Preston Tisch	1989	Chairman of the Loews Corporation

1990s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Rand Araskog	1990	CEO of the ITT Corporation
Wyche Fowler	1990	United States Senator from Georgia
Patricia Reilly Giff	1990	Author
Helen Hayes	1990	Actress
Damon Keith	1990	Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Gil Noble	1990	Television reporter
Harold J. Raveché	1990	President of the Stevens Institute of Technology
George Vecsey	1990	Sports columnist for The New York Times
Mimi W. Coleman	1991	Trustee Emerita of Hofstra
Helen Frankenthaler	1991	Abstract expressionist painter
Robert M. Johnson	1991	Publisher of Newsday
Geoffrey Palmer	1991	Former Prime Minister of New Zealand
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.	1991	Professor of Humanities at CUNY Graduate Center
Patricia Wald	1991	Former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Owen Bieber	1992	President of the United Auto Workers
Elizabeth Coleman	1992	President of Bennington College
Dolores Cross	1992	President of Chicago State University
Sandy D'Alemberte	1992	President of Florida State University
Jean Dalrymple	1992	Theater producer
Marilyn French	1992	Author
J. Bruce Llewellyn	1992	Chairman of the Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Company
John W. Money	1992	Professor of Medical Psychology at Johns Hopkins Hospital
Thomas R. Pickering	1992	United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Harrison Salisbury	1992	Journalist
Susan H. Schulman	1992	Theater director
Walter Turnbull	1992	Founder of the Boys Choir of Harlem
Faye Wattleton	1992	President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Tom Wicker	1992	Journalist
David Dinkins	1993	Mayor of New York City
Cynthia Gregory	1993	Prima ballerina
Shari Lewis	1993	Ventriloquist
Siegmund Spiegel	1993	Jewish architect, war hero, and activist; Holocaust survivor
Harold McGraw Jr.	1993	CEO of McGraw-Hill
Martin Theodore Orne	1993	Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at University of Pennsylvania
L. William Seidman	1993	Head of the FDIC
Gus Tyler	1993	Columnist
Jack B. Weinstein	1993	Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
Ellen Futter	1994	President of the American Museum of Natural History
Murray Kempton	1994	Journalist
Nicholas P. Samios	1994	Director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory
Herbert Stein	1994	Economist
William L. Swing	1994	United States Ambassador to Haiti
Robert Van Lierop	1994	Lawyer
Mario Van Peebles	1994	Film director
Melvin Van Peebles	1994	Film director
José A. Cabranes	1995	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Georgie Anne Geyer	1995	Journalist
Faith Hubley	1995	Animator
Edward Regan	1995	Former Comptroller of New York
Phil Rizzuto	1995	New York Yankees shortstop
Michael Wigler	1995	Microbiologist
Jerome York	1995	CEO of IBM
Drew S. Days III	1996	Solicitor General of the United States
Charles W. Dryden	1996	Member of the Tuskegee Airmen
Gloria Foster	1996	Actress
Frederick Gluck	1996	Director at McKinsey & Company
Deborah Miller	1996	Adjunct Professor of Education at New York University
David Salten	1996	Consultant to Hofstra's President
Frank Stanton	1996	Former President of CBS
Jan D. Timmer	1996
Gary Becker	1997	Professor of Economics and Sociology at University of Chicago
Eddie Bracken	1997	Actor
Barbara Bush	1997	Former First Lady of the United States
George H. W. Bush	1997	Former President of the United States
Paul G. Hearne	1997	President of the Dole Foundation
Billy Joel	1997	Singer, songwriter
Michio Kaku	1997	Professor of Theoretical Physics at City College of New York
Lorraine Monroe	1997	Executive Director and founder of the School Leadership Academy
LeRoy Neiman	1997	Artist
Edward Packard	1997	Author
Scott Ross	1997	Co-founder of Digital Domain
Martin Schröder	1997	Founder of Martinair
Stephen M. Schwebel	1997	President of the International Court of Justice
Percy Sutton	1997	Former Manhattan Borough President
William vanden Heuvel	1997	Chairman of the Roosevelt Institute
John Bierwirth	1998	Former CEO of Grumman
Horace Hagedorn	1998	Founder of Miracle-Gro
Kitty Carlisle	1998	Actress
Owen H. Johnson	1998	Member of the New York Senate from the 4th district
Marvin Kalb	1998	Journalist
Judith Livingston	1998	First female member of the Inner Circle of Advocates
Eugene Ludwig	1998	Comptroller of the Currency
Jonathan D. Moreno	1998	David and Lyn Silfen University Professor at University of Pennsylvania
Bobby Muller	1998	Founder of International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Guy Stern	1998	Professor of German Literature and Cultural History at Wayne State University
Robert L. Bernstein	1999	Founding Chair Emeritus of Human Rights Watch
Schuyler Chapin	1999	Cultural Affairs Commissioner of New York City
Larry Gelbart	1999	Creator of M*A*S*H
John R. McGann	1999	Bishop of Rockville Centre
Chuck Schumer	1999	United States Senator from New York
Muriel Siebert	1999	First woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange
Beatrice Wright	1999	Psychologist

2000s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Stephen E. Ambrose	2000	Biographer
Richard C. Casey	2000	Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Cy Coleman	2000	Composer
Maurice R. Greenberg	2000	CEO of American International Group
Kemp Hannon	2000	Member of the New York Senate from the 6th district
Jeffrey Lyons	2000	Theater critic
John Marburger	2000	Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory
Carl McCall	2000	Comptroller of New York
Margaret Thatcher	2000	Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Jonathan Fanton	2001	President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Judith Kaye	2001	Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals
Joseph M. Margiotta	2001	Former New York State Assemblyman
Sharon Oster	2001	Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at Yale School of Management
Bruce William Stillman	2001	Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Susan Sullivan	2001	Actress
Joseph Bologna	2002	Actor
Woody Johnson	2002	Owner of the New York Jets
Carolyn McCarthy	2002	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 4th district
Bernadette Peters	2002	Actress
Richard Rorty	2002	Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University
Jim Simons	2002	Founder of Renaissance Technologies
Renée Taylor	2002	Actress
Mary Jo White	2002	United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Norm Coleman	2003	United States Senator from Minnesota
Brian Dennehy	2003	Actor
Cokie Roberts	2003	Journalist
E. L. Doctorow	2004	Novelist
Lou Dobbs	2004	Television commentator
Robert Kaufman	2004	Screenwriter
Eliot Spitzer	2004	Attorney General of New York
Chris Albrecht	2005	CEO and Chairman of HBO
Avi Arad	2005	Founder of Marvel Studios
Bill Clinton	2005	Former President of the United States
Michael J. Dowling	2005	President and CEO of North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
Michael Oxley	2006	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 4th district
David Paterson	2006	Member of the New York Senate from the 30th district
Morton O. Schapiro	2006	President of Williams College
Sonia Sotomayor	2006	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Kenneth I. Chenault	2007	CEO of American Express
Christine M. Durham	2007	Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court
David Neeleman	2007	CEO of JetBlue
Eric Schmertz	2007	Former Dean of Hofstra Law School
Martin J. Sullivan	2008	CEO of American International Group
Thomas DiNapoli	2009	New York State Comptroller
Wallace B. Jefferson	2009	Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court
Nicholas Negroponte	2009	Founder of the MIT Media Lab
Paul H. O'Neill	2009	Former United States Secretary of the Treasury
Bob Schieffer	2009	Moderator of Face the Nation

2010s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Ajaypal Singh Banga	2010	President and CEO of Mastercard
Howard Dean	2010	Former Governor of Vermont
Saul Katz	2010	President of the New York Mets
Jan Peter Balkenende	2011	Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands
Irwin Redlener	2011	Founder of the Children's Health Fund
Philip Rosenthal	2011	Creator of Everybody Loves Raymond
Douglas Brinkley	2012	Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities at Rice University
Jonathan Lippman	2012	Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals
Les Moonves	2012	CEO of CBS Corporation
Nicholas Garaufis	2013	Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
Phil Schiliro	2013	Former White House Director of Legislative Affairs
Jared Kushner	2014	CEO of Kushner Companies
Pelé	2014	Footballer and humanitarian
Peter Baker	2015	Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times
Herman A. Berliner	2015	Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Hofstra
Vernon Jordan	2015	Senior Managing Director of Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
Sallie Manzanet-Daniels	2015	Associate Justice of the First Judicial Department
Kathleen Rice	2015	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 4th district
Kathy Hochul	2016	Lieutenant Governor of New York
Steve Israel	2016	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York
Kevin J. Tracey	2016	CEO of Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
Jill Biden	2017	Second Lady of the United States
Mariko Silver	2017	President of Bennington College
Madeline Singas	2017	District Attorney of Nassau County
Janet DiFiore	2018	Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals
Mike Massimino	2018	Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University
Scott Rechler	2018	CEO and Chairman of RXR Realty
Wolf Blitzer	2019	Journalist
Marcus Brauchli	2019	Former executive editor of The Washington Post
Roger W. Ferguson Jr.	2019	Former vice chair of the Federal Reserve
Joe Morton	2019	Actor

2020s

Recipient	Year	Notability
Kathryn Marinello	2021	President and CEO of PODS
Eric Adams	2022	110th Mayor of New York City
Letitia James	2023	67th Attorney General of New York
Sandra Lindsay	2023	Vice President of Public Health Advocacy for Northwell Health

References

• Honorary degree recipients - official website of Hofstra University