Harvard to award 9 honorary degrees
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Doctor of Laws Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became president of Liberia in 2006, the culmination of a career of public service in Liberia that has seen her endure death threats, incarceration, and exile, and an achievement that made her the first woman head of state ever elected in an African country. Sirleaf’s election was also a watershed for Liberia, marking that nation’s emergence from decades of dictatorship and civil war, including the devastating rebellion led by Charles Taylor, now on trial at The Hague for war crimes, and his subsequent election as president in 1997. Liberia’s Second Civil War resulted in his resignation in 2003. Raised in Monrovia, Liberia, Sirleaf came to the United States in the 1960s and studied at the Madison Business College in Madison, Wis., and the Economics Institute in Boulder, Colo., before earning her M.P.A. degree as an Edward S. Mason Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Sirleaf...