June 08, 2007
Pair of Bills
Bill Russell and Bill Gates received honorary degrees from Harvard yesterday. As members of the 25th reunion class, we were close to them before the procession began. Here's Russell in his cap and gown:
Gates is standing next to him. Here's Gates by himself. Sorry for the quality, but I was using my cell phone:
After the morning exercises, Gates spoke in the afternoon at the meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. The 25th reunion class sat on the stage for that one. As we left the yard, we passed very close to Russell.
Hahvuhd, huh? I won't hold it against you...being a Tiger myself.
We don't care. Stick to baseball.
John, don't be a jerk. If this site hasn't earned David a certain amount of goodwill from you, I don't know what will. Stuff like this is part of what makes baseballmusings such a personal, interesting site.
One thing I have always wondered about honorary degrees is how a university decides to award one. Did Bill Gates somehow contribute to some research done at Harvard? Did a student or professor somehow build upon work done by Gates to form his or her own dissertation? Or is it just some random thing where some dean decides he wants to honor someone?
In Gates case, it would have been his 30th reunion if he had graduated. Most of the honorees are people you never heard about but have contributed greatly to research in their areas of work.
One nice thing was the Harvard corporation sticking it to the faculty by giving Larry Summers an honorary degree.
