Apr 26, 2007 - Claremont, Calif. - Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe will receive an honorary doctor of science degree from the University of Alberta (U. of A.) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, during the university’s spring convocation ceremony June 12.

A native of Canada, Klawe earned her Ph.D. (1977) and B.Sc. (1973) in mathematics from U. of A. and was named one of its distinguished alumna in 2003. At the U. of A. she created the Kathleen W. Klawe Prize for Excellence in Teaching of Large Classes in memory of her mother, who taught very large classes as an economics professor there in the 1960s and '70s. The prize is awarded in alternate years between the faculty of arts and the faculty of science.

The University of Alberta in Edmonton is one of the top 100 teaching and research universities in the world, serving some 36,000 students with more than 11,000 faculty and staff. Founded almost a century ago, the university has an annual budget in excess of $1 billion and attracts more than $400 million in external research funding.

U. of A. President Indira Samarasekera spoke at Klawe’s inauguration Feb. 3, 2007, and said:

From the U. of A. and from all of Canada, I wish you congratulations on this spectacular day and all the best from your alma mater. Maria’s alma mater is turning 100 years old next year, and can you keep a secret, all of you? It shouldn’t get out of this room, but in our 99th year, we will be honoring Maria Klawe with an honorary doctorate at this year’s convocation in 2007.

Maria comes well endowed with the Alberta spirit. For those of you who don’t know Alberta, it’s a land of great mountains and great landscapes. Maria comes with many of the characteristics of the Alberta spirit: a ‘can-do’ attitude, outrageous, nothing is impossible for Maria. She juggles, she paints and she performs magic. So Harvey Mudd, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Samarasekera also noted that the U. of A. has educated much of the “Klawe clan,” as she described it, including Maria’s parents, Janusz and Kathleen (who both became members of the faculty), her sister Anna (who works there) and Anna’s husband Hubert Taube, sister Katrina and her husband Alden Poetker, and Maria’s sister Patricia Klawe.

Klawe holds honorary doctorates from Acadia University (2006), Dalhousie University (2005), Queen’s University (2004), the University of Waterloo (2003) and Ryerson University (2001).

President Klawe will also be the keynote speaker at commencement ceremonies for the School of Engineering and Applied Science at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C, on May 19, 2007. She was at the university April 24, 2007, where she delivered the Welling Professorship Lecture entitled “Can Mobile Devices Improve the Quality of Life for People with Aphasia?”

President Klawe is also scheduled to present a talk, “Making Change Happen in Academia,” at the Engineering Education Summit at the University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) on May 16, 2007.