San Diego State University Honors Johnstone And Peres

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- D. Bruce Johnstone of Buffalo, University Professor of Higher Education at the University at Buffalo and former chancellor of the State University of New York, has received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from San Diego State University in California.

He received the degree, a Doctor of Humane Letters, Honorum Causa, on Aug. 28 in a ceremony at which former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres received a Doctor of Laws, Honorum Causa.

The two are among only seven individuals so honored in the 100-year history of the school. A previous recipient was President John F. Kennedy.

The degrees were bestowed at a convocation celebrating the beginning of the SDSU’s second century of operation and the official installation of Stephen J. Weber as its seventh president, a post he has held since July 1996.

Johnstone served as president of Buffalo State College from 1979-88 and was the chancellor of the SUNY system from 1988-94, during which Weber was president of the SUNY College at Oswego. Johnstone has since joined the faculty of UB, where he works in the field of comparative education and higher-education productivity in the Graduate School of Education.

At the convocation Johnstone praised Weber as an educator of “intelligence, wisdom, vision, hard work, humility and integrity.”

Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was honored for his involvement with the late Yitzhak Rabin in an international agricultural project with the SDSU Foundation.

During the ceremony, Peres spoke of the 15-year-old program as a metaphor for peace. Its purpose is to help Israel and Egypt work together to improve agricultural production in their deserts. The project is expected to continue under a new agreement with the Peres Center for Peace, based in Tel Aviv.