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Awarding of Honorary Degrees
A Doctor of Humane Letters is awarded annually to people who have made substantial contributions to the unique mission and purposes of Saybrook Graduate School. These include, outstanding specific contributions to humanistic psychology or human science, outstanding general contributions to the arts and/or sciences, the relevance of which can be related to the unique mission and purposes of Saybrook, and outstanding contributions to the Saybrook Graduate School itself.
Awardees are approved by the Saybrook Graduate School Board of Directors, on the recommendation of a Saybrook faculty or board member.
Past Recipients
- 1987 Rollo May
- 1987 Carl Rogers (Posthumously)
- 1987 John Vasconcellos
- 1989 Alan Guskin
- 1989 Ervin Laszlo
- 1990 Sophie Freud
- 1990 Hubert L.Dreyfus
- 1991 Mimi Silbert
- 1991 Kenneth J. Gergen
- 1992 Joel Kovel
- 1992 Miles Vich
- 1993 James F.T. Bugental
- 1994 Jerome Frank
- 1995 Robert J. Lifton
- 1996 Clark Moustakas
- 1997 James R. Schultz
- 1998 Robert Tannenbaum
- 1998 Stephan Toulmin
- 1998 Don Michael
- 1999 Mickey Hart
- 2001 Huston Smith
- 2001 Patricia Westerbeke
- 2002 George Leonard
- 2002 Georgia L. May
- 2002 Michael Murphy
- 2002 Robert Shapiro
- 2004 Walter Truett Anderson
- 2005 Richard Adams, Esq.
- 2005 Rona King Pehrson, Ph.D.
- 2007 Joanna Rogers Macy, Ph.D.
- 2007 Stanley Keleman
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Richard Adams, Esq.
Richard "Dick" Adams first joined the Saybrook Board of Trustees in 1987 and served for five years. In 1995, he was asked to re-join and served for another 10 years. During this time, he served as Vice Chairman of the Board and as Chairman of the Finance and Trustee Committees for several terms. He was instrumental in establishing the Alan Watts Chair at Saybrook.
Mr. Adams professional career began in 1955 respectively with the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). Shortly after, he was appointed as City Attorney in Michigan. In 1964, he moved to San Francisco and launched his law firm specializing in housing and real estate finance. By the mid 70's, his focus changed to real estate development. Over the next 20 years he was responsible for the creation of several thousand housing units in the Bay Area; more than half of which were affordable housing and for the elderly.
During this time, Mr. Adams served as Chairman of the Mann Housing Finance Agency and as a board member for Innovative Housing, an organization designed to provide shared housing for low income tenants, principally single mothers in the Bay Area.
Mr. Adams earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University and received his JD degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1955.
Rona King Pehrson, Ph.D.
Rona King Pehrson joined Saybrook's Board in 1989 by the request of James Schultz, former Board member and Saybrook Honorary Degree recipient. In 1993, she resigned due to a serious illness. In 1998, she was asked to re-join the board and served as Chair of the Board from 1999 to 2003.
Dr. Pehrson's professional career included five years at Pepperdine University where she taught courses and participated in the administration. Afterwards, she moved into a human resources role worked for Industrial Indemnity and Homestake Mining Company. Dr. Pehrson concluded her career with 16 years at Transamerica Corporation where she was Corporate Vice President for Human Resources. After the sale of Transamerica to AEGON Corporation, Rona retired from business.
Dr. Pehrson earned her bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California. She was a National Merit Scholar and is a member of the honor societies Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi. In the late 1970's, she took courses towards a Masters in Family Therapy.
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Please direct all questions and comments to
thopper@saybrook.edu
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