Honorary Degree Recipients

The Honorable Katherine Anne Castor

For your enforcement of growth management laws throughout the state of Florida as Assistant General Counsel to the Florida Department of Community Affairs;

For your championship of ethics in government and the award-winning Hillsborough County Health Plan providing affordable primary care to hardworking families as a member of the Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners;

For election in your first campaign for a congressional seat to the United States House of Representatives to represent the 11th District of Florida covering parts of Hillsborough, Pinellas and Manatee counties;

For your rapid emergence as a leader in the United States House of Representatives by virtue of your appointment to the Rules, Armed Services, and steering and policy committees;

And for your continued passionate and thoughtful representation of the people of Florida,

Eckerd College confers on Katherine Anne Castor the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa.

Roger John Porter

For your distinguished career as a neurologist and pharmacologist primarily in the development of antiepileptic drugs;

For your publication of 13 books (including 11 on epilepsy) and 199 articles and chapters;

For your 20 years at the National Institutes of Health as Chief of the Epilepsy Branch, Chief of the Medical Neurology Branch, and Deputy Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke;

For your decade with Wyeth Research as Vice President for Clinical Pharmacology and then Vice President and Deputy Head for Clinical Research with worldwide responsibility for clinical programs in Europe, Canada, Latin America and Asia;

For your leadership as Chairman of the White House Committee on Brain and Behavioral Sciences, President of the American Epilepsy Society, Secretary-General of the International League Against Epilepsy, and President of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapies;

For distinguished service awards and special commendations from the United States Public Health Service, the Department of Defense, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences;

And for the wisdom and foresight to be a member of the founding freshman class and major in biology at Eckerd College, Eckerd College confers on Roger John Porter the Degree of Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa.

Charles Mitchell Stripling III

For your courageous leadership as elected Superintendent of the public schools in racially divided Mitchell County, Georgia, which brought the community together in support of a new high school, higher teacher salaries, increased academic standards and test scores, the return of white students to the public schools, powerhouse athletic teams, and even support for higher taxes to make these things possible;

For your service as a member of the graduate faculty of the College of Education of historically black Albany State University, whose Educational Leadership Program has in recent years under your guidance trained many of the education administrators throughout the State of Georgia, and where you were elected the first time winner of the Graduate School Teacher of the Year Award;

For your commitment as someone raised on a farm to a love of the land and a conservationist ethic which has found expression in the creation of the C.M. Stripling Irrigation Research Project named after your father, and your appointment as Vice-Chair of the Georgia Conservancy and to the Board of Directors of the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership;

And for your and your wife Patsy’s steadfast and generous support of your shared alma mater for the last forty years, since your graduation from Florida Presbyterian College in 1968, Eckerd College confers on Charles Mitchell Stripling III the Degree of Doctor of Letters, Honoris Causa.