Marvin Leonard Kalb, a veteran journalist and senior fellow and founding director of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center for the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, will deliver the December commencement address and receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree during ceremonies at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 15 in the Colonial Center.

Harry Willard Davis, a 1937 graduate of the University and a USC professor emeritus of chemistry, will receive an honorary doctor of science degree.

Baccalaureate, master’s, and professional degree candidates will receive their diplomas at the ceremony, which will include degree recipients from all USC campuses.

Commencement ceremonies for doctoral degree recipients will be held at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 15 in the Koger Center.

The University expects to award more than 2,300 degrees during commencement exercises with Columbia campus students receiving five associate degrees, 946 baccalaureate degrees, 573 master’s degrees, 16 graduate certificate degrees, 15 graduate specialist degrees, 108 doctoral degrees, 10 law degrees, 49 doctor of pharmacy degrees, and one doctor of medicine degree.

The University also expects to award 31 associate degrees, 187 baccalaureate degrees, and two master’s degrees from USC Aiken; 27 associate degrees from USC Beaufort; 15 associate degrees from USC Lancaster; 14 associate degrees from USC Salkehatchie; 29 associate degrees and 322 baccalaureate degrees from USC Spartanburg; 21 associate degrees from USC Sumter; and seven associate degrees from USC Union.

Born in New York, Kalb graduated from the City College of New York and earned a master’s degree from Harvard University. He was focusing on a Ph.D. in Russian history when he left Cambridge, Mass., in 1956 to accept an assignment from the U.S. State Department in Moscow, Russia. In 1957, Kalb was the last person hired personally by Edward R. Murrow at CBS News.

For the next 30 years, Kalb pursued a distinguished career as chief diplomatic correspondent for CBS News and NBC News. He was moderator of Meet the Press and earned two Peabody Prizes, the DuPont Prize from Columbia University, and several Overseas Press Club awards.

Kalb has been the host of several TV series for public broadcasting, including Candidates ’88 and Vox Populi, a series on citizen attitudes towards government. Kalb moderated The Kalb Report: Ethics in Journalism, a broadcast series co-sponsored by the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs and the National Press Club. He has appeared regularly on PBS’s NewsHour and other TV and radio programs.

Kalb has devoted much of his attention in recent years to the discussion of the state of journalism and its loss of public regard and respect.

With his brother and fellow foreign correspondent Bernard Kalb, Kalb was co-author of a biography of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The two also collaborated on The Last Ambassador about the collapse of Saigon in 1975. He is the sole author of several other books, including One Scandalous Story, about news coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal; The Nixon Memo; Roots of Involvement: The U.S. and Asia; and two best-selling novels.

Kalb’s scholarly interests include research of the ethical and political legacy of the Ten Commandments. Kalb is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His daughter and son-in-law, Judith Kalb and J. Alexander Ogden, are assistant professors in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at USC.

Born in Pelzer, Davis is a former USC provost, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He received his BS degree in chemical engineering from the University in 1937 and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Cincinnati in 1939 and 1941, respectively. Davis joined the faculty of the University in 1944 as an adjunct professor of chemistry and during the next 36 years served extensively as an academic administrator, including 11 years as head of the Department of Chemistry, six years as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, four years as dean of the Graduate School, seven years as vice president or vice provost for research, and two years as vice president for academic affairs. At the time of his retirement in 1977, he was vice president for regional campuses.

Throughout his career, Davis served on University committees and panels at the regional, national, and international levels. He was the principal organizer of the Sigma Xi Scientific Honor Society on campus, secretary and chair of the S.C. Section of the American Chemical Society, executive secretary of the Southern Regional Education Board Advisory Commission on Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and a member of the Fulbright Selection Committee for France. He also was president of the S.C. Academy of Science, a member of the Selection Committee for Woodrow Wilson Fellowships, and an original member and chair of the Council of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies.

Upon his retirement from the University, Davis’ friends, students, and colleagues established the H. Willard Davis Lecture Series devoted to seminar presentations by leading chemists from around the world. The seminar series has brought numerous outstanding chemists to the University where they have interacted with students and faculty.
Davis received the American Chemical Society, South Carolina Section, Chemist of the Year Award and was listed in Who’s Who in America and American Men of Science. He was a member of Blue Key, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Lambda Epsilon, Tau Beta Pi, Alpha Chi Sigma, Sigma Xi, the American Chemical Society, S.C. Academy of Science, the LeConte Scientific Society, Torch Club, and the Cosmos Club. He also is a Rotarian, a member of the Anderson, South Carolina, Genealogical Society, and a Life Member of the Carolina Alumni Association.

11/03