Kansas State University to honor Dan Glickman with honorary doctorate

Dan Glickman, the former U.S. secretary of agriculture and longtime congressman from Kansas, will receive an honorary doctorate from Kansas State University.

The awarding of the honorary doctorate was approved by the Kansas Board of Regents at its recent meeting and is the highest honor Kansas State University can give. Glickman will be presented with the honor at the Graduate School’s fall commencement ceremony at 1 p.m. Dec. 7, in Bramlage Coliseum.

Glickman was nominated for the recognition by several current and former Kansas State University administrators and faculty members as well as several distinguished colleagues, including Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas; Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities; and Dorothy Reddel Caldwell, retired deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service.

“Few individuals can match Dan Glickman’s distinguished record of service to Kansas, the nation and the world, particularly on issues involving food and agriculture, and hunger prevention and food secure communities,” said Charles Taber, university provost and executive vice president. “Through this work, he has helped champion and advance K-State’s longstanding work with global food systems. We are truly pleased to honor him with the university’s highest honor.”

Glickman represented the state’s 4th Congressional District from 1977-1995. During that time, he was a member of the House Agriculture Committee, including six years as chair of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over federal farm policy issues. He also was an active member of the House Judiciary Committee, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and was a leading congressional expert on general aviation policy.

In 1995 Glickman was appointed secretary of agriculture by President Bill Clinton and served in the post until 2001. As secretary, he administered farm and conservation programs; modernized food safety regulations; and forged international trade agreements to expand U.S. markets.

Glickman earned a bachelor’s in history from the University of Michigan and a law degree from the George Washington University Law School. He served as a trial attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 1969-1970, and then as a partner in the Wichita law firm Sargent, Klenda and Glickman from 1970-1977. He also was president of the Wichita School Board in 1976.

Since leaving his cabinet post, Glickman has remained active in several organizations involved with agriculture, public health and more. He is a senior fellow at the Council on American Politics, a part of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. He also is a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, focusing on public health, national security and economic policy issues. He is executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program and senior fellow at the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. In addition, he is member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Chicago Mercantile Exchange; chair of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition at the Center for U.S. Global Engagement; and a member of the board of trustees of the National 4-H Council.

As a member of the Meridian Institute, Glickman co-chairs an initiative at the Institute of Medicine on accelerating progress on childhood obesity. He is co-chair of the global agricultural development initiative of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and is a director of Oxfam America Inc. He also served as chair and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of American from 2004-2010, and taught at Harvard University’s School of Government and Institute of Politics from 2002-2004.

Glickman has been a speaker twice for Kansas State University’s prestigious Landon Lecture Series: On Sept. 8, 1995, he presented the lecture “Securing Our Place in the Global Economy,” and on Oct. 21, 2013, he joined five other former secretaries of agriculture for a Landon Lecture panel, “A Conversation With the Secretaries.”