Honorary degrees to be awarded to five during 141st Commencement

Leaders in aerospace, education and manufacturing are among the five people selected to receive honorary degrees during Washington University's 141st Commencement May 10.

The University also will bestow academic degrees on more than 2,300 students during the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle.

Ruth J. Simmons, Ph.D., president of Brown University, will deliver the Commencement address, titled "Design for Living: Digital Truth and Technicolor Dreams," and receive an honorary doctor of humanities degree.

The other honorary degree recipients and their degrees are: I. Jerome Flance, M.D., Washington University emeritus professor of clinical medicine, doctor of humanities; Sam Fox, chairman, chief executive officer and founder of Harbour Group, Ltd., doctor of laws; Harry C. Stonecipher, vice chairman of The Boeing Company, doctor of science; and Earl E. Walker, founder and president of Carr Lane Manufacturing Co., doctor of science.

I. Jerome Flance, M.D.

A renowned St. Louis physician, I. Jerome Flance, M.D., emeritus professor of clinical medicine, has had a career at the School of Medicine for 53 years. A physician, educator and pulmonary disease specialist at the medical school, he also always has had an interest in working with disadvantaged people.

Since retiring from medicine in 1998 at age 87, Flance has been the special associate for community redevelopment at the medical school, representing the Washington University Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation in its efforts to revitalize the Forest Park Southeast community.

Flance earned a bachelor's degree in 1931 and a medical degree in 1935, both from Washington University. He joined the University's clinical faculty in 1944 and became director of the University's Pulmonary Service at the St. Louis Hospital and an attending physician at both Jewish and Barnes hospitals. In 1953, he initiated a hospital-based home-care program at Jewish Hospital, serving as its director for 11 years. During that time, he started the first formal home-care program for tuberculosis in the United States.

Also in 1953, after 11 years of solo practice, he and Michael M. Karl, M.D., professor of clinical medicine, established the Maryland Medical Group, where Flance practiced for 43 years. Flance also was medical director of the St. Louis Lung Association, president of the medical staff of Jewish Hospital and a member of the St. Louis Lung Physicians to Combat Air Pollution.

The School of Medicine established the Rosemary and I. Jerome Flance Professorship of Pulmonary Medicine in 1995.

Sam Fox

Sam Fox, chairman, chief executive officer and founder of Harbour Group, Ltd., has served as an extraordinary leader in St. Louis business, philanthropic and civic affairs and as a steadfast friend of Washington University.

Fox has chaired the University's $1.3 billion capital campaign since its inception in 1998. He has served as a member of the University's Board of Trustees since 1989. He served as vice chairman of the board from 1999-2001, when he was elected an emeritus trustee.

He is a 1951 graduate of Washington University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration and was a member of the Dean's Honor Roll and Beta Gamma Sigma.

Fox's activities on behalf of Washington University only begin to describe his leadership in the St. Louis community. He serves or has served on the boards of many of the key institutions in the community. He is chairman, and formerly was president, of the Greater St. Louis Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, one of the strongest scouting programs in the United States.

Among his many honors, Fox received the University's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1986 and the University's Distinguished Business Alumni Award in 1987.

Ruth J. Simmons, Ph.D.

When Ruth J. Simmons, Ph.D., was sworn in as the 18th president of Brown University on July 3, 2001, she became the first African-American to lead an Ivy League institution as well as Brown's first woman president. She also holds appointments as professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of Africana Studies at Brown.

Simmons' rise to the Brown presidency has been an extraordinary accomplishment. The 12th child born to sharecroppers in the small east Texas town of Grapeland, she moved with her family to Houston when she was seven years old. There her father found employment as a factory worker and her mother worked as a maid. She has written thoughtfully about those years in an autobiographical essay, "My Mother's Daughter: Lessons I Learned in Civility and Authenticity," published in the Texas Journal of Ideas, History and Culture (fall/winter 1998).

Simmons earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude at Dillard University in New Orleans and her master's and doctorate in Romance languages and literatures at Harvard University. She has written on the works of poets David Diop and Aime Cesaire, who championed an influential movement to restore the cultural identity of black Africans, and is the author of a book on education in Haiti.

Harry C. Stonecipher

Harry Stonecipher's career in the aerospace field spans more than 47 years, from his start at General Motors as a senior lab technician to being elected vice chairman of The Boeing Company in May 2001.

After graduating with a physics degree from Tennessee Technological University Stonecipher started his career at General Motors. In 1960, he joined General Electric's Evendale Aircraft Engine Product Operations, where GE produces large jet engines.

During his career at GE, Stonecipher participated in the development, support, sale and introduction of a number of engines for civilian and military application.

Stonecipher left GE in 1987 to become corporate executive vice president of Sundstrand, a worldwide market leader in the design and manufacture of technology-based products for aerospace and industrial markets.

In September 1994, Stonecipher was elected president and chief executive officer of McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis. McDonnell Douglas' financial performance soared under Stonecipher, with the stock increasing from $18.48 just prior to his arrival to more than $70 just before the consummation of a merger with Boeing in August 1997.

Among his many awards, Stonecipher received in 1996 the John R. Allison Award for outstanding contributions to national defense by an industrial leader and the annual Rear Admiral John J. Bergen Leadership Medal for Industry from the Navy League for his contributions to advancements in military aviation.

Earl E. Walker

In 1952, Earl E. Walker founded Carr Lane Manufacturing Company, now the world's foremost supplier of tooling components, modular fixturing, drill jig bushings and related workholding products for all areas of manufacturing.

As a welder at McDonnell Aircraft Company in the early 1950s, Walker realized there was a market for tools to hold airplane parts as they were being fabricated. He began making these tools in his home garage in Kirkwood, Mo., and his company soon took off.

Today, the Carr Lane Manufacturing Company and its many distributorships have plants and warehouses in several locations around the country, employ more than 325 workers and offer more than 9,700 tooling items for virtually every industry around the world. The company's catalog includes everything from simple clamps to devices used in nuclear power systems.

Walker and his wife, Myrtle, who is vice president of Carr Lane, are generous supporters of educational, civic and charitable organizations. The Walkers established the Earl E. Walker and Myrtle E. Walker Professor of Engineering in the University's School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1998.

Walker received Washington University's Robert S. Brookings Award in 1999 for exemplifying the alliance between the University and its community.