Honorary Degree Recipients
- Jefferson Davis LL.D. 1859, senator from Mississippi (1847–53, 1857–61), Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce (1853–1857), and president of the Confederate States of America (1861–65); namesake of Bowdoin's award for excellence in government and constitutional law *
- Ashley Day Leavitt D.D. 1918, Pastor, State Street Congregational Church, Portland, Maine
- Robert Frost Litt.D. 1926, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and professor at Amherst College (1916–38)
- Leverett Saltonstall LL.D. 1940, Governor and United States Senator from Massachusetts
- Sturgis Elleno Leavitt Litt.D. 1943, scholar of Spanish language and literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Harlan Fiske Stone LL.D. 1944, Attorney General under President Calvin Coolidge (1924–25); Associate (1925–41) and Chief (1941–46) Justice of the Supreme Court
- N.C. Wyeth A.M. 1945, American artist and illustrator
- Margaret Chase Smith LL.D. 1952, representative (1940–49) and senator (1949–73) from Maine
- Sir Roger Makins LL.D. 1955, British Ambassador to the United States
- Edmund Muskie LL.D. 1957, Maine governor (1954–58); senator from Maine (1958–1980); Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter (1980–81)
- David Rockefeller LL.D. 1958, banker and philanthropist
- Roswell Gilpatric LL.D. 1963, attorney, United States Deputy Secretary of Defense
- Edward Brooke LL.D. 1969, senator from Massachusetts (1967–79)
- Andrew Wyeth D.F.A. 1970, American artist
- E. Frederic Morrow LL.D. 1970, first black US presidential aide; former Bowdoin undergraduate (1926–30)
- Olympia Snowe LL.D. 1983, representative (1979–94) and senator (1994–present) from Maine
- Berenice Abbott D.F.A. 1982, photographer
- George H. W. Bush LL.D. 1982, 43rd Vice President (1981–89) and 41st President of the United States (1989–1993)
- Maya Angelou, Litt.D. 1987, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author
- Ken Burns L.H.D. 1991, director of documentaries on the American Civil War (1990), baseball (1994) and jazz (2001)
- Cornel West L.H.D. 1999, celebrity professor at Yale, Harvard and Princeton *
- Paul Simon LL.D. 2001, congressman (1975–85) and senator (1985–97) from Illinois
- Grace Paley Litt. D. 2003, essayist and short story writer
- Shulamit Ran Mus.D. 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
- Torsten N. Wiesel S.D. 2004, Nobel Prize winner in medicine
- Frederick Wiseman D.F.A. 2005, documentary filmmaker
- Roger Angell L.H.D. 2006, senior editor of The New Yorker
- Drew Gilpin Faust L.H.D. 2007, president of Harvard University
- Yvon Chouinard L.H.D. 2008, businessman, climber, founder of Patagonia Inc.
- Gina Kolata Litt.D. 2008, science journalist for The New York Times
- Kenneth Roth LL.D. 2009, executive director of Human Rights Watch
- Edward Albee L.H.D. 2009, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Read more about this topic: List Of Bowdoin College People
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