Media Releases >  Media Releases Archive  > Three of the world’s leading citizens accept honorary degrees from Simon Fraser University.

Document Tools

Contact:
Kathryn Aberle, Media & PR, 604.291.3929: kathryn_aberle@sfu.ca
Susan Jamieson_Mclarnon, Media & PR, 604.291.5151 susan_jamieson-mclarnon@sfu.ca

Three of the world’s leading citizens, the Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi, and Desmond Tutu, accepted honorary degrees from Simon Fraser University today.

" Simon Fraser University is delighted to honour the extraordinary life and work of these remarkable individuals," said University president, Dr. Michael Stevenson. "Like any great university, we are committed above all to academic freedom, to the discovery of truth through disciplined dialogue and scholarship, and to an autonomous, open and inclusive community which sustains the search for truth. Those we honour today have done more than any to reinforce these commitments by their great example. They have given us strength and inspiration by the courage of their convictions. And they have given us hope that in the very high stakes of modern politics the cards of peace and reconciliation will trump the ace of clubs."

Over 600 people crowded into the recently renovated Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver for this special ceremony. Guests and honorees were treated to musical tributes on the part of the Cathedral Choir, the Vancouver Children’s Choir and members of the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band.
The Dalai Lama, religious and temporal leader of the Tibetan people, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 recognizing his efforts to peacefully resolve the political relationship between Tibet and the People’s Republic of China. As the 14th Dalai Lama, he and thousands of his followers fled Tibet in 1959 for exile in India. Since then he has taken his message of peace and cooperation throughout the world. Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is a lawyer and human rights activist in Iran. She is known for her advocacy of peaceful democratic solutions to society’s problems and her strong defense of freedom of speech. She has argued, to the point of imprisonment, for a new interpretation of Islamic law incorporating such human rights as democracy, equality before the law and religious freedom. Desmond Tutu was one of those most instrumental in leading the movement to end Apartheid in South Africa. As Anglican bishop of Johannesburg, Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches, and Archbishop of Cape Town, he championed the transition to a non-racial democratic society. For his leadership in that struggle, Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. Following the establishment of democratic government in South Africa, Archbishop Tutu was appointed to head the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which allowed for uniquely magnanimous settlements for damages sustained by victims of the crimes of Apartheid.

View the archived web cast of the special convocation ceremony at www.sfu.ca/lidc/broadcast/archive/dalailama/