E. R. de Arantes e Oliveira
PALAVRAS DE ABERTURA DO
DOUTORAMENTO HONORIS CAUSA À
PRESIDENTE DO MASSASSUCHETS INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY, DRA. SUSAN HOCKFIELD
ACADEMIA DAS CIÊNCIAS DE LISBOA
FICHA TÉCNICA
TITULO
PALAVRAS DE ABERTURA DO DOUTORAMENTO HONORIS CAUSA À PRESIDENTE DO
MASSASSUCHETS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, DRA. SUSAN HOCKFIELD
AUTOR
E. R. DE ARANTES E OLIVEIRA
EDITOR
ACADEMIA DAS CIÊNCIAS DE LISBOA
CONCEPÇÃO GRÁFICA
SUSANA MARQUES
ANTÓNIO SANTOS TEIXEIRA
ISBN
978-972-623-192-9
ORGANIZAÇÃO
Academia das Ciências de Lisboa
R. Academia das Ciências, 19
1249-122 LISBOA
Telefone: 213219730
Correio Eletrónico: [email protected]
Internet: www.acad-ciencias.pt
Copyright © Academia das Ciências de Lisboa (ACL), 2015
Proibida a reprodução, no todo ou em parte, por qualquer meio, sem autorização do Editor
PALAVRAS DE ABERTURA DO DOUTORAMENTO HONORIS CAUSA À
PRESIDENTE DO MASSASSUCHETS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, DRA.
SUSAN HOCKFIELD
E. R. de Arantes e Oliveira
Honorable MIT President, Dr. Susan Hockfield,
Your Excellencies, the Minister and the Secretary of State for Science,
Technology and Higher Education,
Your Excellency the Ambassador of the United States,
Honorable Rectors,
Honorable Vice-President of the Academy of Sciences,
Honorable Vice-Rectors,
Eminent Academicians and distinguished Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Portuguese universities are usually very careful in conferring honorary degrees.
Such degrees are usually bestowed by a single university upon a single personality. I
don’t remember to have seen, or heard about, an honorary degree being jointly
conferred, in a single ceremony, by three universities. It certainly is an exceptional
honor.
*
A degree conferred by one University usually poses no problems in what concerns the
place where the ceremony should take place.
But the problem posed to the three universities that conferred an honorary degree to Dr.
Susan Hockfield - the University of Oporto, the Technical University of Lisbon, and the
New University of Lisbon -, was a complex problem, which was solved by resorting to
an institution of a different kind: the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon.
The Great Hall of the Academy Library seemed to the three universities an appropriate
scenario for bestowing the degree upon Dr. Susan Hockfield, and this was the matter of
the proposal that was set forth to our Institution.
Let me observe that the venerable Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, founded 230 years
ago as the Royal Academy of Sciences, in the Christmas Eve of 1779, is one of the
jewels in the crown of the Portuguese Nation.
Many of the most illustrious Portuguese personalities, as well as some of the most
famous foreign scientists and men of culture living during the last centuries, from
Benjamin Franklin (in 1782) and d’Alembert, to Einstein, and from Einstein to Oscar
Niemeyer, where honored for having been elected its members.
Recognizing that Dr. Susan Hockfield certainly deserved to be “proclaimed” doctor
honoris causa where so many other scientists of her own rank have once been “elected”
academicians, the Academy gladly agreed to such proposal. Our agreement should not
be regarded as a trivial decision, but as a token of the deep appreciation of the
Institution towards MIT and its outstanding President.
As the current President of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, I am delighted that a
solution like this one has been found and implemented.
*
Let me confess however that, beyond an institutional reason, a personal one exists that
makes me extremely happy.
1
This reason is that I am myself an alumnus of MIT. About 40 years ago, I followed
indeed, during one full academic year, graduate courses at the Departments of Civil, as
well as Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, being thus granted a Master’s
degree.
Let me wonder how surprising life can be! How could I imagine indeed, in the sixties of
the XXth century, when I was a simple graduate student at MIT, that almost half a
century later I would be chairing a ceremony in which the 16th President of MIT will be
made doctor honoris-causa by three Portuguese universities?
2