The University will confer honorary degrees today on 10 people, including Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, Who will deliver the Commencement address, architect I.M. Pei, Painter Jacob Lawrence and former University Chicago President Hanna H. Gray.

Among the honorary winners are two graduates of the College--economist James Tobin '39 and business historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. '40.

Other recipients are author Doris M. Lessing, engineering professor Mildred Dresselhaus, former Overseer John C. Whitehead and historian Helene Ahrweiler.

The number of honorary degree recipients rosethis year, from nine last-year.

Helene Ahrweiler

One of the world's leading Byzantinehistorians, Helene Ahrweiler has taught at theSorbonne since 1967. Born in Athens in 1926,Ahrweiler graduated from the University of Athensand received her doctorate in history from theEcole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.

Ahrweiler worked as a researcher for the CentreNational de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) from1955 to 1967.

Appointed professor of history at the Sorbonnein 1967, Ahrweiler served as chair of its historydepartment from 1969 to 1970.

She served as president of the University ofParis I from 1976 to 1981. She was chancellor ofthe Universities of Paris in 1982. Ahrweiler waspresident of the Georges Pompidou National Centerof Art and Culture from 1989 to 1991.

Alfred D. Chandler Jr. '40

Straus Professor of Business History emeritusAlfred Dupont Chandler Jr. '40 was born inGuyencourt, Del. in 1918.

Chandler attended the college, and received hismaster's degree from Harvard in 1947 and a Ph.D.in 1952, He was a research fellow at Harvard in1955.

Chandler was named a professor of history atJohns Hopkins University in 1963. He served aschair of the history department there from 1966 to1970.

Chandler was appointed to an endowed chair atHarvard Business School in 1971. He has been aprofessor emeritus since 1989.

He received the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes in1978 for The Visible Hand.

Mildred S. Dresselhaus

A leading physics and engineering educator,Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus was born in Brooklynin 1930. After graduating from Hunter College inNew York City in 1951, she studied in England as aFulbright Fellow.

She received a master's degree from radcliffein 1953 and a PH.D. in physics from the universityof Chicago in 1958. Dresselhaus has served asprofessor of electrical engineering since 1968 andprofessor of physics since 1983.

She has served as Institute professor at MITsince 1985.

"This is my 13th honorary degree, but this oneis really special, because, firstly, I was astudent there and [because] the pomp andcircumstance is certainly different from any ofthe degrees I have," she said Tuesday .

Hanna H. Gray

President emerita of the University of chicago,Hanna Holborn Gray will speak at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology's commencement tomorrow.Gray, who has focused on the intellectual historyof the Renaissance and Reformation, Served aspresident at the University of Chicago from 1978to 1993.

Born in Heidelberg. Germany in 1930, Graygraduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1950 and was aFulbrighrt Scholar at Oxford University. Shereceived her Ph. D. From Harvard in 1957.

she taught at Harvard from 1955 to 1960 andreturned as a visiting lecturer from 1963 to 1964.She taught at the University of Chicago from 1961to 1971.

Gray served as Yale's acting president from1977 to 1978.

since 1978, Gray has been a history professorat Chicago.

Vaclav Havel

A renowned dissident who became president ofthe Czech Republic in 1989, Havel's writingshelped spark the democratic uprisings thatproduced Communism's collapse in Czechoslavakia.

An activist during the 1960s and 1970s, Havelwas a chief signatory and spokesperson for theCharter-77 movement, which attacked the Communistautocratic government. Havel's works--includingThe Garden Party(1963) and TheConspiratorswere banned but had world Wideinfluence.

For his role in the revolution, Havel was namedto the largely honorary post of president ofCzechoslovakia.

Havel is the recipient of the Indira GandhiPrize(1993).

Jacob Lawrence

A renowned educator and painter, Jacob Lawrenceis regarded as one of the foremost American Blackartists of the 20th century. Born in 1917 inAtlantic city, Lawrence studied at the Harlem ArtWorkshop in New York from 1932 to 1939. he taughtat the Pratt Institute. Art School from 1958 to1965.

Lawrence was a Rosenwald fellow from 1940 to1942 and a Guggenheim fellow in 1945.

He taught at the Art students League in NewYork between 1967 and 1969 and at the New Schoolfor Social research from 1966 to 1971.

Lawrence's major retrospective exhibition atthe Whitney Museum of American Art opened in 1974.In 1990, he was given the National Medal of ArtsAward by President George Bush.

Doris Lessing

Award-winning novelist and author Doris MayLessing has explored the colonial experiences ofSouthern Africa in her works. She is currently afellow in literary scholarship in English andAmerican studies at the University of East Angliain England.

Born in Kermanshah, Iran in 1919, Lessing hasbeen a prolific writer. She authored thefive-volume Children of Violence (1951-1969),Briefing for a Descent Into Hell(1971) and LondonObserved: Stories and Sketches (1992).

She received the Somerset Maugham award in1954, the Prix Medici in 1976 and the ShakespearePrize in 1982. Lessing lives in London.

I.M. Pei

Architect leoh Ming Pei is the renowneddesigner of scores of structures ranging from theglass pyramid outside the Louvre in Paris to theJohn F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

Born in Guangzhou, China in 1917, Peiimmigrated to the U.S. in 1935 and became acitizen in 1954. He received a bachelor's inarchitecture from MIT in 1940 and a master's inarchitecture from the Harvard Graduate School ofDesign in 1946.

After practicing architecture in New York Cityfrom 1939 to 1942, Pei taught as an assistantprofessor at the Design School from 1945 to 1948.

He joined the architectural firm of Webb andKnapp in 1948, and has run his own firm, now Pei,Cobb, Freed and Partners, since 1955. He was awheelwright fellow at Harvard in 1951.

Pei's projects include the West Wing of theMuseum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Dallas CityHall, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce inToronto and Robert E. Kennedy's grave at theArlington National Cemetery. He was responsiblefor the expansion and modernization of the Louvre.

Pei has been on the National Council for theArts since 1980.

James Tobin '39

the 1981 Nobel laureate in economics JamesTobin '39 has served as Sterling professor ofeconomics at Yale University since 1957.

Tobin was born in Champaign, Ill. He receivedhis bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1939, hismaster's in 1940 and a ph. D. in 1947.

An associate economist with the Office of PriceAdministration and Civilian Supply in Washingtonfrom 1941 to 1942, Tobin was a teaching fellow atHarvard between 1946 and 1947. He was named anassociate professor of economics at Yale in 1950and became a full professor in 1955.

In an interview Tuesday night the professorexplained his theory, now known as "Tobin's q,"the market value of business capital to itsreplacement cost or reproduction cost."

"It means a great deal to me because that isthe ultimate of horn honoorary degrees as for asI'm concerned , and of awards of anykinds--possibly excepting the Nobel," tobin said.

John C. Whitehead

Former president of the Harvard Board ofoverseers and now chair of AEA Investors Inc. inNew York, John Cunningham Whitehead served deputysecretary of state from 1983 to 1989.

Whitehead was born in Illinois in 1922 andgraduated from Haverford college in 1943. Hereceived his MBA from Harvard Business School in1947, and joined Goldman Sachs and Co., where heserved from 1947 to 1984.

He is former chair of the board of trustees ofthe National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C