UCSF awards honorary degrees to students interned during WWII

By Kristen Bole

What UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, will award honorary degrees to 68 former students who were interned in the United States during World War II due to their Japanese heritage. UCSF is the first public university in California to provide such degrees to former students, many of whom will be honored posthumously. Three other UC ceremonies will follow during annual commencement ceremonies on the Davis, Berkeley, and Los Angeles campuses. Media are invited to attend the event, which will include several honorees and more than 300 members of their families and the community, as well as public dignitaries. Where UCSF Mission Bay Campus (3rd and 16th Streets) William J. Rutter Center, Robertson Auditorium 1675 Owens Street San Francisco When Friday, December 4 Doors open: 3:00 p.m. Ceremony: 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. Reception: 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. Why More than 700 students at four UC campuses – Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles and San Francisco – were removed from the West Coast in 1942 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order allowing the U.S. military to send Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals to internment camps. In July 2009, the UC Regents voted to suspend a 37-year university moratorium on honorary degrees to acknowledge these former students. The diplomas bear the inscription Inter Silvas Academi Restituere Iustitiam – or “to restore justice among the groves of the academe.” Interview, Photo and Audio/Video Opportunities Ceremony; selected honorees; UC honorary degree task force members. Contact Media interested in attending the event should RSVP to Kristen Bole at [email protected] or call (415) 476-2743 or (415) 476-2557. During the event, please contact her on her cell phone at (415) 608-2102. UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. For further information, visit www.ucsf.edu. For more details on the UC ceremonies: http://honorary.universityofcalifornia.edu/