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March 31, 2016

Yale professors Ian Shapiro and Christopher Udry receive honorary degrees from University of Ghana

Chancelor Kofi Annan presents Professor Christopher Udry an honorary degree photo

Source: Yale News

The University of Ghana conferred honorary degrees upon Yale professors Ian Shapiro and Christopher Udry at a special congregation led by Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, on March 23.

Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science, adjunct professor of law, and the Henry R. Luce Director of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, was presented with his honorary degree after delivering the Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lectures at the University of Ghana on “Fighting Political Domination.” Shapiro’s lectures focused on three themes over the course of three days: “The Responsibility to Protect: From Rwanda to Libya and Beyond”; “Lessons from South Africa’s Transition I: The Role of Leadership”; and “Lessons from South Africa’s Transition II: The Role of Business.”

Shapiro is considered to be a leading political scientist and renowned for his research methodology. He has written widely and influentially on democracy, justice, and the methods of social inquiry. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His books include “The Real World of Democratic Theory,” “Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy against Global Terror,” and “The Flight From Reality in the Human Sciences,” among others.

Udry, the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics, was awarded with an honorary degree for his “distinguished scholarship.” His citation stated that he is “internationally recognized for outstanding research and publications in the area of development microeconomics. He has supported research at University of Ghana and enhanced capacity building for several Ghanaian and African development economists for many years.”

Udry is a development economist whose research focuses on rural economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has conducted extensive field research in West Africa on technological change in agriculture, the use of financial markets, asset accumulation and gift exchange to cope with risk, gender relations and the structure of household economies, property rights, and a variety of other aspects of rural economic organization. Udry has directed the Economic Growth Center, served as the chair of the Department of Economics, and as chair of the African Studies Council at the MacMillan Center.

Read more news and view more photos from the ceremony on the University of Ghana’s news page