A Renowned Artist, Alumnus And A Past University Administrator To Receive Honorary Degrees

4/17/97

University Park, Pa. -- A renowned artist and Penn State alumnus and a former University administrator, now head of a national private grantmaking foundation, will be awarded honorary degrees during May commencement ceremonies at Penn State.

John Thomas Biggers, a celebrated muralist who has painted realistic scenes from rural black life and other well-known works over the last five decades, will receive the honorary doctor of fine arts degree as part of the May 17 commencement activities in the College of Arts and Architecture. William C. Richardson, president and chief executive officer of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and former executive vice president and provost of Penn State, will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters on May 18 at The Hershey Medical Center.

Honorary degrees may be awarded to those who are eminent scholars, performers, artists and practitioners in academic fields, or individuals who have made particularly distinguished contributions to society in areas such as public service, business or government. This year's recipients, only the fourth and fifth to be named by the University, were nominated by a 15-member committee.

Biggers, named a Distinguished Alumnus in 1972 -the highest honor bestowed by the University Board of Trustees - has been called one of America's "most significant African American artists." He earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in art education from Penn State in the late '40s and early '50s, before going on to become one of the nation's leading African-American artists.

Biggers followed his early mentor, Viktor Lowenfeld, to Penn State when Lowenfeld became a Penn State professor in 1946. As an undergraduate, Biggers met the muralist Henry Varnum Poor, the artist working on the Land Grant frescoes in Old Main, and was inspired to paint murals. After his graduation in 1948, Biggers joined the faculty of then Texas State University for Negroes in Houston, now Texas Southern University, and established the college's art department which, since its founding, has won acclaim for training prominent art educators. In 1952-53, Biggers completed a mural for the Blue Triangle YWCA in Houston, "The Contribution of Negro Women in American Life and Education," the preliminary studies for which had been completed in the studio of Jules Heller, the later Founding Dean of the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State.

Though Biggers has many historical ties to Penn State, the two murals, "Night of the Poor" and "Day of the Harvest," which hang in Burrowes Building on the University Park campus, are perhaps his most familiar works to most Penn Staters. Biggers' other work on campus is "Sharecropper Mural" at the Paul Robeson Cultural Center.

In 1967, Biggers was named a distinguished professor at Texas Southern University. He retired in 1983 to devote most of his time to his art. In 1990, Biggers received the honorary degree, doctor of humane letters, from Hampton University. In 1995, a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Hampton University toured the United States. He has received national recognition as a teacher and has been honored as a distinguished African American artist. Biggers, the author and collaborator on many books, has lectured at Penn State, the University of Maryland, Howard, Brown, Texas A&M and other universities.

Richardson, former president of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from 1990 to 1995 and a professor of health policy and management there, joined the Kellogg Foundation in 1995. The Kellogg Foundation, located in Battle Creek, Mich., was established in 1930 "to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources." As a private grantmaking foundation, it provides seed money to organizations and institutions that have identified problems and have designed constructive action programs aimed at solutions. Over the last six decades, the foundation has provided more than $2.93 billion in charitable distributions.

From 1984 to 1990, Richardson was executive vice president and provost of Penn State. He also held the position of professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in Penn State's College of Medicine at The Hershey Medical Center. From 1981 to 1984, he was dean of the Graduate School and vice provost for research at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Richardson has been active with numerous foundations, private institutions and public and private sectors. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, of the National Academy of Sciences, and is a fellow of the American Public Health Association. He serves on the boards of directors of the Kellogg Company; CSX Corporation; the Mercantile Bankshares Corporation and the Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust Company. In addition, he serves on the external advisory committee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Born in Passaic, N.J., Richardson graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., with a bachelor's degree in history. He went on to earn a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago, Center for Health Administration Studies, Graduate School of Business, in 1964, and a doctorate from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business in 1971.

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Contacts: Christy Rambeau (814) 865-7517 (office) cmr7@psu.edu
Alan Janesch (814) 865-7517 (office) axj12@psu.edu