Sewanee to give Bishop High honorary doctorate

The University of the South, Sewanee, will confer upon the Rt. Rev. Rayford B. High, Jr., bishop of Fort Worth, an honorary Doctor of Divinity on Friday, October 17, 2014, at the Founders’ Day Convocation.

Sewanee’s announcement said, “The Rt. Rev. Rayford High, C’63, serves as the provisional bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. High received a B.A from the University of the South and obtained his M.Div. from Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. He served in parishes for 32 years during his early ministry, and was canon for pastoral ministries and the diocesan liaison to St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital when he was elected bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas in 2003. In that role he oversaw 44 congregations, the pastoral care of clergy and their families, and renewal and prison ministries. He had retired as bishop suffragan when he was asked to serve as provisional bishop. High was named Humanitarian of the Year in 1997 by the Waco Conference of Christians and Jews. He has served his alma mater in many ways since his graduation, including serving three times as a trustee and as a regent from 2009 to 2011.”

The Founders’ Day Convocation will open Sewanee’s Family Weekend. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder and chairperson of the world’s largest development organization, will deliver the Founders’ Day address and receive an honorary Doctor of Civil Law during the ceremony. The Convocation will be streamed live.

Charles Wright, the poet laureate of the United States, will be given an honorary Doctor of Letters. A native of Tennessee, Wright was educated at Davidson College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He began to write poetry during military service in Italy and published his first collection in 1970. He is the author of more than 20 books of poetry, two volumes of criticism, and award-winning translations. Wright’s books have won the National Book Award, the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. His other honors include the 2013 Bollingen Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit Medal, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. In 1999 he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Wright was the Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia. His son Luke is a member of Sewanee’s class of 1992.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed is the founder and chairperson of BRAC, the largest development organization in the world. BRAC’s primary objectives are the alleviation of poverty and empowerment of the poor. Educated at both Dhaka and Glasgow Universities, Abed was a senior executive at Shell Oil before devoting himself to Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. After the war, he returned to the new nation and established BRAC to serve refugees from the conflict. BRAC has now expanded from its coverage of an estimated 110 million people in Bangladesh to a total of 10 countries covering an additional 16 million people across Asia and Africa. Its development interventions include primary education, healthcare, agricultural support, microfinance and enterprise development. Abed was appointed Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George by the British Crown and was included in Fortune’s 2014 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.