Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota

Eugene M. Lang. Innovator. Entrepreneur. Educator. Philanthropist. Founding Periclean. Engaged global citizen. Throughout your remarkable career you have shown an unshakable commitment to helping others, particularly to helping young people, achieve their dreams.

After a successful career in business and considerable service on the board of your alma mater, Swarthmore College, you made a promise that would change the lives of thousands of school children across the country and change the way people look at access to education. Looking out at 61 fidgety sixth graders at the East Harlem elementary school from which you graduated, you promised, "Graduate from high school and I will give each of you a scholarship so you can go to college." You followed through on your pledge, and the majority of those sixth graders went on to college. Through your I Have a Dream Foundation, more than 200 sponsors have helped more than 12,000 disadvantaged students throughout the country with academic support.

In 1996, you received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for your work. In presenting the award, President Clinton said, "We are all beneficiaries of Eugene Lang's innovative vision, and it is a great tribute to him that since 1981 other philanthropists, many state governments, and now, I hope, our national government, have joined him in trying to guarantee the dream of a college education to all people."

Never tired of taking the next step, you appeared again a year later before those former sixth graders and their families on the 16th anniversary of your original promise. You again surprised the audience by promising to provide scholarships to the children of the original 61 sixth graders.

Providing opportunity, particularly educational opportunity, to those in need is your great gift. Your support of scholarships, programs and facilities at Swarthmore over the years has been outstanding, as has your support for entrepreneurship at the Columbia University Business School and for Eugene Lang College of New School University.

But you also take a broader view that education should prepare students for a life of civic engagement and social responsibility. That is the vision that led to the creation in 1999 of Project Pericles, now 19 members strong and growing. Challenging colleges and their students to integrate their quest for knowledge with their commitment to their communities, you have begun a project that has immense potential for changing American society. It is as simple and dynamic an idea in its own way as was your pledge to those sixth graders 23 years ago. I expect that the results will be as impressive.

For your inspiring and visionary efforts on behalf of school children, college students, and communities across the country and for being one of the nation's great philanthropists, Macalester College is proud to bestow upon you the Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.