On April 11th Georgetown welcomed director Martin Scorsese to campus for a screening of his new film Silence, based on the novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō. The Director of the Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Dr. John Buchtel, was fortunate enough to not only attend the screening and talk with Scorsese, but was also able to bring several items from the Library's Special Collections to show the director. During Dr. Buchtel’s preparation for this meeting, he brought to my attention the fact that Georgetown University awarded Endō an honorary degree in 1987. Rather than have this fact remain known to only a few people at the University, it seemed appropriate to share the details of that award with the greater Georgetown community. Below you will find a copy of Endō’s honorary degree citation and photographs from the Graduate Honors Convocation ceremony held on May 23, 1987. The other honorees at the Graduate Honors Convocation ceremony for that year were Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Helen Varney Burst, Yakov Malkiel, and George Thomas Scharffenberger.
--Ann Galloway, Assistant University Archivist
May 11, 2017
