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I rvin D. Reid, your presidency of Montclair State strongly reinforced the University's stature among higher education institutions. The work you did here is evident not only in buildings ranging from the police station to the library addition, from the Spanish-influenced campus entrances to Dickson Hall, but also in innovations in global education, the new student experience (including the Academic Success Center), the honors program, and graduate and lifelong learning.

Your visionary leadership resulted in many accomplishments, including planning for the University's first doctoral program, its first international conference, and its first joint admissions program with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, as well as New Jersey's first public-private partnership in the state college and university sector, resulting in theconstruction of Yogi Berra Stadium, Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, and Floyd Hall Arena. You established the Faculty Scholarship Incentive Program and the Global Education Research Project grants.

At Wayne State University, you have continued your groundbreaking activities by creating the University's first Foundation and initiating its first capital campaign; expanding the physical campus with new academic, residential, and recreation facilities; and establishing programs to enhance student learning and campus pride. A strong advocate of a role for higher education in regional economic development, you have played a major part in efforts to revitalize downtown Detroit and to work with Michigan's other major universities to bring the state to prominence in life sciences research.

From your childhood in South Carolina to your days as a student at Howard University, where you earned bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology, and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, from which you received a master's degree and a doctorate in business and economics; from your years as a professor and dean of the School of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to your presidency of two fine universities, you have never settled for what is instead of what could be. Your efforts have been recognized by awards from such disparate organizations as Crain’s Business News, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and the Jewish National Fund.

Now it is with great pleasure that Montclair State University bestows upon you, Dr. Irvin D. Reid, its seventh president, the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.

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