UN chief to receive honorary doctorate from Ewha
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Ban Ki-moon
By Jhoo Dong-chan
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will receive an honorary doctoral degree from Ewha Womans University this month.
Ban is expected to receive the degree in “women’s studies” on May 20, during his four-day visit to Korea for the World Education Forum, a school spokesman said Tuesday.
He said the university would confer the degree for Ban’s contribution to enhancing women’s rights and fighting violence against women under the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) project.
Ban will be the first man to receive the doctor’s degree in women’s studies from the university.
But this is not his first honorary degree. Ban received an honorary degree in diplomatic science from Seoul National University, his alma mater, in July 2008.
Ewha Womans University has granted an honorary degree in women’s studies to Ruth J. Simons, former president of Brown University, and Gertrude Ibengwe Mongella, the first president of the Pan-African Parliament.
Tarja Halonen, former president of Finland, was granted an honorary doctoral degree in political science in April 2000, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel received an honorary doctoral degree in the same major from Ewha in November 2011.