Five people will be awarded honorary degrees at UNC’s commencement ceremony May 8.

Anne-Marie Slaughter headlines the group and will give the commencement address.

This year’s honorary degree recipients are:

Sandra Cisneros, Doctor of Letters, award-winning writer of celebrated works including “The House on Mango Street” and 1995 MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

Paul Fulton, Doctor of Laws, former president and CEO of Bassett Furniture Industries, Inc and the Sara Lee Corporation as well as former Dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Nell Irvin Painter, Doctor of Humane Letters, author of multiple books including “The History of White People, Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meaning 1619 to the Present,” member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and former Guggenheim Fellow.

Sister Helen Prejean, Doctor of Divinity, spiritual adviser and advocate for the abolition death penalty. Author of “Dead Man Walking,” which inspired the 1996 film.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Doctor of Humane Letters, President and CEO of non-partisan think tank New America and a professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

 

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