ANN ARBOR—Johnnetta B. Cole, president of Spelman College, and James J. Duderstadt, president of the University of Michigan, will deliver commencement addresses at the U-M graduation ceremonies May 3-4.

Honorary degrees will be awarded to: Cole; Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, composer; Jesse Hill Jr., retired chairman of Atlanta Life Insurance Company; Mstislav Rostropovich, cellist, conductor and pianist; Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund; and Stephen Smale, professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Cole will give the main speech at the Spring Commencement on May 4 in Michigan Stadium. Honorary degrees will be conferred at this event. Marion Fiona Bouch will make remarks on behalf of the graduating students.

Duderstadt will be the main speaker at the University Graduate Exercises in Hill Auditorium on May 3. Doctoral candidates and Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies master’s degree candidates will be honored at the ceremony.

The U-M’s schools and colleges also will hold their own recognition ceremonies for their graduating students. Altogether, some 5,500 students on the Ann Arbor campus expect their degrees this spring.

Those receiving honorary degrees:

Cole, who will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree, is the first African American woman to head Spelman College. In 1992, Spelman became the first historically Black college to receive a number one rating in U.S. News and World Report’s annual college issue of “Best College Buys.” Spelman was named the number one regional, liberal arts college in the South. During her career as an anthropologist, professor, administrator, author, and researcher, Cole has been an advocate for people of color and women everywhere.

Gorecki, regarded as one of the most talented classical composers of the 20th century, was born in Poland. His music has in the past several years traveled more widely and attracted new performers and audiences in the West. As a young composer, he was the foremost experimentalist in the Polish avant-garde in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Gorecki will receive an honorary doctor of music degree from the U-M.

Hill, who will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree, served as chairman, president and chief executive officer of Atlanta Life from 1973 to 1992. He was the company’s vice president and chief actuary before becoming the company’s third president and chief executive. In 1977, he was elected chairman of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the first Black to hold such a position in a major American city.

Rostropovich, who will receive an honorary doctor of music degree, is recognized internationally as a musician and a defender of human rights and artistic freedom. Widely considered to be the world’s greatest living cellist, he has recorded virtually the entire cello repertoire. Music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., for 17 seasons, Rostropovich now holds the title Music Director Laureate.

Sadik, as executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General. On her appointment in 1987, she became the first woman to head one of the United Nations’ major voluntarily-funded programs. A national of Pakistan, Sadik has consistently called attention to the importance of addressing the needs of women, and of involving them in making and carrying out development policy. She will receive an honorary doctor of science degree from U-M.

Smale, who also will receive an honorary doctor of science degree, is a leading mathematician who has made important contributions in differential topology, dynamical systems, many aspects of non-linear analysis and geometry, and in applied mathematics. He won the Field Medal from the International Mathematical Union in 1966 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1970, among other honors.