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Mr. President, I have the honor and personal pleasure to present Saul Bernard Cohen, distinguished geographer, educator, pioneer in higher education, and long-time leader of the Clark faculty.
Saul Bernard Cohen, a cascade of accomplishments has marked your long and sterling career in the academy. As executive officer of the Association of American Geographers, and more recently, as its president, you have championed geography’s contributions to the fostering of a mature view of the world and to the art of statecraft. For more than three decades, your efforts with the United States Office of Education, and particularly its Trainer of Teacher Trainers Program, the National Commission on Social Studies, the Institute of International Education, the Commission of Geography and Afro America, and a host of other state, national, and international commissions, have spearheaded bold departures and executive initiatives in the social sciences and in the improvement of teaching at all educational levels. As president of Queens College, you brought wise and imaginative leadership, steering that institution to new levels of excellence.
Your thirteen years as director of the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University mark a watershed in the history of this school. With seemingly boundless energy, you modernized facilities and equipment, enlarged faculty and staff, created new reservoirs of student support, stimulated interdisciplinary programs and research, and helped Clark become the country’s leading educational center for minority and international geographers. Clearly your accomplishments have not been limited to geography. As graduate dean and chair of the faculty at Clark, your imaginative initiatives touched a wide array of academic programs and the faculty as a whole, enriching the University with a vision of knowledge in pursuit of the humane society.
Your scholarly writings have been no less notable, with lasting contributions to the field of political geography and an understanding of international tensions, their sources, and prospective solutions in the Middle East.
Mr. President, on behalf of the trustees, faculty, students, and staff of Clark University, I request the degree of Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa, be conferred upon Saul Bernard Cohen.