Medical school dean to receive honorary degree from Lincoln University

Dr. Cato Laurencin, vice president for health affairs at the UConn Health Center and dean of the School of Medicine, will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Lincoln University of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and be the school’s keynote speaker during its 150th commencement exercises on May 3.

Lincoln University, chartered in 1854, was the first institution in the world to offer higher education in the arts and sciences for young men of African descent. Since its inception, Lincoln has attracted an interracial and international enrollment.

The school’s alumni include Langston Hughes, ’29, world-acclaimed poet; Thurgood Marshall, ’30, first African-American Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; and Kwame Nkrumah, ’39, first president of Ghana.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mrs. Rosa Parks are among past recipients of honorary degrees from Lincoln University.

“I am extremely honored to have been chosen to receive the Doctor of Science degree from Lincoln University,” says Laurencin. “Lincoln is an outstanding university with a rich tradition of excellence.”

Laurencin has achieved national prominence as an orthopaedic surgeon and chemical engineering expert.

He holds the Health Center’s Van Dusen Endowed Chair in Academic Medicine and is a professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. He also holds an appointment in the School of Engineering as a professor of chemical, materials and biomolecular engineering.